Balance
by Redlance-ck
Summary: Days in the lives of Sam and Brooke and the steps that, sometimes clumsily, bring them closer together. Sam/Brooke
1. Balance

**Title:** Balance

**Rating:** PGish

**Disclaimer: **Characters belong to Ryan Murphy, I'm just borrowing them so they can do my bidding for a while.

**Summary:** Days in the lives of Sam and Brooke and the steps that, sometimes clumsily, bring them closer together.

**A/N:** My very first foray into the world of writing Popular fic. Don't the chapters get progressively longer as they go ;) If you like, feel free to review, but i'd be just as happy if you walked away smiling a little :)

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Balance

She thinks that some people take balance for granted. Without it, the world would be completely turned upside down. Imagine it, one morning you wake up and get out of bed. Or try to, only you find yourself tipping forward and landing smack on your face in the middle of the room. And can't get back up again.

"Hey Sam." She turns around to find Brooke's hazel eyes gazing at her, a smile pulling at her lips so white teeth are visible. Sam's balance trips over the sudden erratic beating of her heart and she flounders.

"I, uh… hi." Brooke breezes past her and opens the refrigerator door, grabbing a bottle of water. Sam's eyes flutter closed for a second as she feels the blonde's body sweep by inches from her own. She is acutely aware of how cold the metal of the sink is against the slightly exposed skin of her back, below where her t-shirt ends. Brooke turns back to her. She reaches up and tucks her hair behind her left ear, eyes moving up to find Sam's again. Now her stomach is tripping, tumbling. Over and over itself, as though it's trying to swim down into her legs in an effort to get them to keep balanced and keep her standing.

"I'll see you later?" Sam nods mutely and Brooke smiles once more before leaving the kitchen. The brunette's eyes follow her as she goes. Every inch of her aching with the effort to keep upright, to keep her from reaching out to touch bronzed skin, to stroke blonde tresses.

It's a moment before Sam can breathe again. It's a little while longer before her balance returns to her and she can stop using the sink as a crutch.

Sam no longer takes balance for granted. Because every time Brooke is in the same room as her, every time Brooke looks at her, it throws her balance off, and before she knows it, she's falling. Again. Faster and faster, until the blonde leaves, and Sam hits the ground hard. Momentarily dazed and left to wait for the next time balance deserts her, and she stumbles.


	2. Mirrors

**Jaymie Leeds Cullen** - Hi! Thanks so much for the feedback! I had an idea for a second part to Sam's little drabble, and.. well here it is. Hopefully you find it as enjoyable as the first.

**Note - **Am still testing the waters...Not entirely sure i'm happy with how this turned out in the end. May go back and fiddle with it later. Hope it's okay for now though :)

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Mirrors

Brooke thinks that balance is a very important thing. She thinks without the balance of day and night, the world would fall into chaos. Without an equal balance of love and hate, the world would be incomplete. She thinks that the balance of light and dark is needed to fill the world with colour.

Brooke has found that she thinks about these things a lot lately. How balance is a pivotal force in existence. She thinks about it now as she stares at her half-clothed body in the full length mirror, as she has done at least once a week for as long as she can remember. She frowns slightly as she pulls at the skin of her stomach. It disgusts her to see the skin stretch and she makes a face as she lets it go.

Most days, Brooke hates mirrors. Most days, she dreads getting out of bed in the morning, because she knows she has to face one. She won't argue that they have their uses, that they do aid her in getting ready, that life would be a lot more difficult if she wasn't able to stand in front of one and evenly apply her makeup. But some days, she wishes mirrors were obsolete, because she finds that they've forced her to settle into a routine of applying the products she is sure she needs to try and make herself appear attractive, and sometimes she thinks that no amount of makeup will make her seem beautiful. These days she can't seem to stand in front of one without touching up some part of her appearance. Forever finding faults.

The balance between low and high self esteem has shifted for Brooke, and she tries very hard to bring hers back to somewhere at least in the middle, but she isn't always successful. Which is how she gets into situations such as this.

Back in front of the mirror. Clad in only her underwear. Eyeing herself with extreme dissatisfaction, a deep frown creasing her forehead, jaw jutting out at an angle and teeth clenched.

"_If you were perfect she would have stayed." _The voice, she thinks, has been with her as long as the self loathing. _"Why can't you be perfect, Brooke?" _It was years before she figured out why the voice rang so familiar. _"What is __**wrong **__with you?!" _It was her own, taunting, humiliating herself. _"God, you're so fat. You're not seriously thinking about eating __**again **__today, are you?" _She doesn't understand why the people at school admire her so much. Why Harrison is so, obviously, in love with her.

Her head snaps around as she hears the familiar click that signals a door opening, and her stomach drops through the floor as her brain tries to remind her that she never locked it before coming in, but she has no time to register what it's attempting to tell her. Startled brown eyes are suddenly boring into her own, and Brooke's heart has gone in the complete opposite direction of her stomach, shooting into her throat. She suddenly feels very hot.

"Oh my god." Is the surprisingly monotone statement. If Brooke were able to function enough to think anything at the moment, she would expect there to have at least been some shrieking. But there's nothing for a long few seconds. Just them staring at one another, unable to move.

"Sam!!" Brooke apparently feels the need to shriek for both of them, finally gathering enough sense to grab one of the hand towels that hang beneath the sink and attempt to cover herself with the far too small piece of cloth. Brooke notices that Sam has to lift her gaze upwards to meet her own.

"God, Brooke, have you never heard of locks?!" Sam is suddenly angry, staring at the blonde with fire in her eyes and reddening cheeks. Brooke briefly wonders if she's trying to cover up embarrassment. The tone in the brunette's voice has its usual effect and flicks the switch inside Brooke that sends her from placid to psychotic in 0.2 seconds.

"Haven't you ever heard of knocking?!" Brooke shoots back, unconsciously taking a step towards her housemate. "Some people actually consider it a polite thing to do before entering a room, but I guess we both know that you don't exactly have much experience with politeness!" Sam all but growls in response, and fair eyebrows raise in challenge, but something seems to stop her from throwing another angry retort the blonde's way. Brooke watches Sam swallow hard, as her posture relaxes. Sam's gaze lingers on her for the slightest of moments longer, before she spins on her heel and leaves the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

With a shaky sigh, Brooke turns back to the mirror. She drops the towel somewhere next to her feet and gives herself a once over. She rolls her eyes, starting to smile, and then closes them. She doesn't understand why Sam is either.

Brooke doesn't like looking at herself because it tips the love/hate scales her appearance sits upon. It makes her feel ugly. But when Sam looks at her…. She likes that. Even though Sam never says anything, even though the brunette seems to go out of her way to make Brooke think she can't stand being around her for longer than two minutes. Even though Sam does this, Brooke knows how she feels. She can see it every time deep, brown eyes find hers. The fire she finds there practically screams it. And every time, the balance between love and hate is reset, with love sitting a little high than before. Because when Sam looks at her, Brooke feels beautiful.


	3. Leech

**Thanks for the awesome feedback :)**

**Note: I'm still trying to get used to the Sam/Brooke speech. I'm even using DVDs as a reference, so try and bear with me ;) This doesn't really have a time line, since i only own season 1 on dvd i don't want to give one. So... it's somewhere before the end of season 2 :-D**

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Leech

Brooke doesn't quite understand how this has happened. After plenty of sleepless nights, she's been forced to conclude that she has no idea when it began. No amount of thinking things over has brought her any closer to figuring out exactly why she's flipped her lid, for she has also been forced to conclude that that has in fact happened, or to figuring out if there's any way to stop the insanity from turning into dementia and settling there. If she's honest with herself, Brooke has long since realised there is no possible way of stopping or even slowing the process. The crazy appears to have attached itself to her, like a leech. Only instead of sucking the blood from her, which she has decided she may actually prefer, it was focused solely on eating away at her ability to think clearly. Not to mention, sanely. It also seemed to greatly enjoy sucking her willpower out through her eyeballs.

It was doing it now. Dragging it out, forcing her eyes downward. Demanding they search until the leech spots the object it's seeking. Or, as the case usually was, the person.

At least, Brooke likes to blame it on the leech. Because what other possible explanation can there be? That she willingly chooses to perch herself atop the highest bench of the bleachers overlooking the football field, in the hopes of not being recognised, just so she can watch her mandatorily participate in heinous acts of torture. Otherwise known as gym class. She likes to believe she watches to get some malicious satisfaction out of seeing her run lap after lap, that the thrill she feels coursing through her every single time she lays eyes on the other girl has something to do with her relishing seeing her get shoved roughly to the muddy grass during a game of soccer. However, not all of her is willing to wear the charade-shawl she's draped over herself and so she can't quite fully deny the real reasons she's there and how she'd actually like to grab a hold of the girl shoving her and wring her neck. And then kiss any scrapes better.

Stupid leech.

Brooke doesn't understand how she can go from severely disliking someone to thinking she might explode if she doesn't touch them. How her blood can boil with both anger and lust. She doesn't understand how she can see a person every day, but not really see them at all. Because even though Brooke doesn't know when or how this happened, she knows that one day she suddenly began to look at Sam differently, and now she can't **stop **looking at her.

And so she finds herself in situations such as this. Admiring from afar. Be it from atop the bleachers or covertly glancing at her from the 'popular' table in the lunch room. She's shocked that she hasn't been caught doing it yet. At least, Sam hasn't said anything if she's noticed. Brooke just can't seem to help herself. She's fairly certain if someone handed her a pencil, even though she lacks any drawing ability, she would be able to render a perfect image of the other girl. Even just closing her eyes, Brooke can see her so clearly. Her deep, oceanic brown eyes, perfect skin, Brooke can unfalteringly picture every single tooth she shows when she smiles. And oh, when she smiles.

Brooke wonders if she stares too much. Then realises she wouldn't be able to stop herself even if she came to the conclusion that she did. Brooke does it because she can't **not **do it. She doesn't know if she'd call it love, at least at this point she'd rather not, but the pull she feels when she's around the other girl is incredible. An immeasurable force, and she's never felt anything like it. She doesn't know what it is, only knows that she's helpless and has no option but to surrender to it.

They fight less because of it. Or rather, because so much of Brooke's energy is spent trying to fend off lustful desires and the impulsive, raw need to grab Sam by the neck and kiss her until all her breath is stolen, that she has absolutely none left to start any kind of argument, or defend against one. Sam seems to have the same problem.

And Brooke wonders about that.

She doesn't dwell on it too long though, because she's suddenly being looked at. She feels it before she really sees it. She can also feel the heat rising in her face. Part of her really hoped she wouldn't be recognised, but she's being flagged down by waving arms and it appears as though the soccer game is over. Brooke feels a sense of panic overwhelm her as she realises Sam is walking towards where she's sitting. Her brain is throwing question after question at her, and she has no answer for any of them.

"_Why aren't you leaving?" _

"_She's gonna ask you why you're here, you know that right?"_

"_Why are you still sitting here?!"_

"_What are you going to tell her? You're trying to pick up some soccer skills?"_

"_Why are you still staring at her?!"_

"_Oh my __**god**__, why aren't you leaving?"_

By the time Brooke has gotten her bearings together, Sam has already jogged three quarters of the way towards her.

"_She has fantastic legs."_

"_You are a dirty, dirty pervert. __**Move**__!!"_

And Brooke does. But not at all in the way she intended. Her addled and flustered brain, unsure of which direction would be best to take, decides to pull her in all of them. And her balance, wanting no part in the war between love and hate, staying and fleeing, decides to turn traitor and desert her completely. Brooke tumbles. Tripping over the bench in front of her. Her hands shoot out in anticipation of meeting cold, hard plastic. They don't. Instead they settle on warmth.

Sam is there. And Brooke has to stop herself before she conjures up an image of the brunette in shining silver armour. Blue eyes open tentatively, after instinctively snapping closed at the first inkling of gravity pulling her down to the ground, to find smiling brown ones staring at her. Then she finds the actual smile being reflected in them, and suddenly her breath is the one being stolen.

"You know you're not supposed to drink on school premises, right Princess?" A dark eyebrow quirks in limitless humour. "You almost fell." Brooke glances back to deep eyes the colour of chocolate. She can feel the searing heat caused by Sam's hands on her waist. An effort to keep her upright, she supposes. But Sam doesn't seem to be in any hurry to relinquish the contact.

"Yeah. Almost." Brooke chuckles, a little nervously. _"You fell way before she made her way up here to catch you…. Oh that was gross. You are in so deep, McQueen." _"Thanks for…." She trails off. Inexplicably unable to find words at that moment. Sam just smiles even wider, her faced perfectly streaked with mud, making Brooke's heart almost shatter with its wild beating, and shrugs nonchalantly.

"Couldn't let you fall and mar that pretty little head of yours now, could I?" Sam gazes at her, smirking. Brooke feels like someone turned the sun up a good 30 degrees.

"I… um… I-I-" _"Oh my god, you are such a freak! She's gonna think you're a freak. Will you please at least pretend as though you're someone with the ability to form sentences. Even if they don't make sense, right now that would be an improvement. And stop thinking about how good her hands feel on you! It's not helping." _"Yeah, that… Not good." _"I cannot believe you just said that."_ Sam's gives her a look that suggests she may be thinking the same thing, only with more humour than annoyance.

"Well, Grammar Queen, I have to hit the showers." Sam finally lets her hands drop to her sides. Brooke is furious that she instantly misses the contact. A look that is a mixture between disgust and apprehension shadows Sam's face. "As much as it distresses me to say that. There's nothing more nightmarish than disrobing in full view of people you see every single day. I mean, kids literally have nightmares about that, right?" Brooke manages to chuckle slightly and nod her head. "It's a cruel and unusual punishment to make us sweat this much in the middle of the day."

"I've found teachers to be psychotically sadistic." Sam laughs at this.

"Couldn't agree more." With that, the brunette moves to make her way back down to the field. "I'll see you later?"

"Yeah. We have Glass this afternoon." Sam winces and rolls her eyes.

"And the good times just keep on rolling." She flashes a wide, toothy grin at Brooke and waves the fingers of her right hand in farewell. "Later, gator." Brooke watches her decent, notes the slight bounce in her step, and lets herself fall back onto the bench she had been seated on, eyes closed. A goofy smile spreads onto her face as her eyes open to find the brunette instantly in the throng of retreating, muddy soccer players.

Brooke doesn't understand how this has happened. But she's beginning to realise that she doesn't care either.


	4. Tease

Jaymie Leeds Cullen - Aww, thank you :-D I think i had the most fun so far writing the last chapter. Although this one was pretty fun too. I hope you enjoy it :)

the outskirts - I think i'd have a bounce in my step too ;) Wish i could have days like Sam. Lol.

Krumnut - Thanks again for all the help!

Sheady - I have found that too ;) Thanks for the R&R!

And so, onto the next part. I don't know if i'm 100 happy with this, but i got the idea for it in my head and it wouldn't go away until i got it down. It hasn't been beta'd yet, so sorry ahead of time for any mistakes/typos. I'll try and beta it sometime soon and get a fixed version up.

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Tease

Sam grunts loudly, exhaling noisily through her nose. She is vaguely aware that a light sheen of sweat covers her. Her fingers ache. She was unaware human digits could be bent and contorted in such ways, but if they had never been before, they had now.

She wonders if there is any feeling that can surpass the ones flowing through her at that moment. The feeling of sheer bliss, pleasure and contentment. She doesn't think so.

Before this moment, Sam had thought she'd never be able to do it, that it was an accomplishment pushed far out of her reach by her own hand. Not for lack of wanting, she had wanted this more than mere words could convey. It was her lack of skill and ability that had rocked her, making her slip from the stool of self-assuredness on which she usually sat. She had bitten the bullet in two, spitting its sour, powdery self doubting contents to the floor. And she had been rewarded with the two words she had longed to hear for what now felt like an age.

"You win!"

How she has waited to see him, face hidden by a jaguar mask, dance his final victory. She has beaten the game. And feels like she could take on the world. Surely, nothing can possibly come close to this feeling of utter elation.

"Hey Sam." And her breath has left her. Every last nerve in her body stops functioning, then kick starts and suddenly wants to make up for their lapse by over compensating and Sam is sure she can feel the molecules making up the air around her bump into one another. She takes the following few milliseconds to try and draw them in before turning her head to glance over her left shoulder. Brooke stands in the doorway, blue eyes shining, smiling at Sam. And she's forgotten what elation feels like.

Every time she sees Brooke, she is in awe of her. Struck embarrassingly dumb and wordless sometimes by her beauty alone. She wonders why Brooke can't see how amazing she is. That she feels she has to starve herself to become perfect is beyond Sam's comprehension. To Sam, Brooke is, always has been and always will be.

"What are you doing here?" And it effects Sam in the weirdest ways, twists her words so that they come out completely different than they were supposed to. She doesn't mean it to sound accusing and mean, and like she has been hoping Brooke wouldn't enter her personal space for the next year, but it does. Brooke doesn't manage to get her guard up in time, and Sam glimpses the hurt she feels, and her heart aches. "I'm sorry." Her faces scrunches into a grimace and she smiles apologetically. "That didn't come out like I wanted it to. Let me try that again." She shifts to so her knees are pressed into the cushions of the couch and her arms rest along the back of it, now facing the blonde. "Hi Brooke!" She gives a very obviously exaggerated grin. "How come you're home?" Brooke laughs a little at her efforts to avoid an argument, which have been caused by a lot less than snippy words before. The blonde shrugs her shoulders.

"Nicole and Mary Cherry decided a day of shop 'til you drop therapy was in order. I didn't really feel like sitting back while they yell at shoe salesmen for not having the newest line of Jimmy Choo's. Nic had the last one strung up by his neck tie while Mary Cherry threatened to put a stiletto heel through his eye, until security finally came and pried them off." Sam notices the dull, sullen tone in Brooke's voice.

"And what? That doesn't sound like fun to you?" She jests, hoping for and receiving another smile. Sam has found that the sight of smiling Brooke is not unlike a shot of cocaine. It can make you see the world in an entirely new light, make you see all kinds of colours you didn't know existed. It can make you feel elated beyond belief, and terrified beyond reason. But it always, always leaves you wanting just one more hit. "I for one would pay good money to see Satan and her clinically insane partner in crimecarted off like the crazy people they are."

"Of course you would." Brooke is smiling again, and Sam can feel it affecting her, swimming through her veins.

"Were there handcuffs? Please tell me there were handcuffs." Blonde hair shakes in amusement and blue eyes roll. Brooke finally makes her way into the room. With each step she takes towards the couch, Sam's heart beats a little faster, and she finds she has to struggle to keep her thoughts from being replaced solely with "Oh my god" or "I cannot believe how sexy she looks right now".

"Sorry to disappoint." Sam manages to look suitably disappointed as Brooke takes a seat next to her, and she settles herself in her previous cross-legged position.

"Way to ruin my fun." Brook pointedly glances at the TV, to find the main screen of a video game greeting her.

"Sorry. It seems like you were having fun until I got here." Sam beams widely at her, unable to contain her excitement and feelings of pride over her, in her mind, stunning accomplishment.

"No big." She says, trying with little effort to be nonchalant. "I just kicked everyone's butt today and beat the game." Brooke stares at her for a moment, before raising her eyebrows and giving Sam an 'are you serious?' look.

"Wow, way to go, Sam. All hail the Queen of Time Wasting." Sam scoffs at this and slaps Brooke playfully on the arm, before pointing widely at the TV.

"I will have you know that playing these games requires a level of skill and concentration that is severely underestimated. Sure, you can mash buttons until your fingers fall off, but the real skill lies in truly mastering the moves until you become unbeatable. Like me." And the grin she gives Brooke, the complete self-loving egotistical grin is enough to make the blonde laugh right in her face. It takes away some of Sam's bluster.

"Spare me. Video games? Require skill? The only skill needed to play these things" she indicates the television "is the incredibly innate skill of remembering to eat once every four hours so you don't eventually pass out from lack of consumption. Which is something I have seen you forget to do on numerous occasions. Harrison too." Brooke dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. Outraged by the accusation, Sam refuses to let it drop.

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I have more of an idea than you think I do." Brooke states firmly, shrugging her shoulders in a noncommittal way, fully prepared to allow the conversation to move onto something else. Sam's hand fly into the air and she practically squeals her response.

"Please!" Brooke sighs and turns her head back to the brunette. "What could you possibly know about video games? Unless there's a cheerleader version of 'Dance, Dance' I'm blissfully unaware of." Blue eyes stare at Sam in complete disbelief for a moment.

"_I cannot believe she just said that! Okay…. we'll play it her way."_

Blue eyes are suddenly shooting a challenge Sam's way. Not having had such a look directed her way for quite some time, it's enough to make her swallow convulsively. A few times. And struggle between whether or not she finds it incredibly sexy, or incredibly alarming. She watches as Brooke rises and moves to the cabinet where the system accessories are kept. She is aware that her eyes linger a lot longer than they should as Brooke retrieves a controller, and by the time the blonde has returned to the couch, Sam is having to put serious effort into keeping her breathing calm and even.

"Well, o' mighty slayer of pixel images." Her voice is dripping with sarcasm, and there's a dangerous look in her eyes that, if Sam weren't so sure of herself, would frighten her. "Let's do this." Sam laughs as she uses the power of player one to select the game mode and her character. Brooke smirks in satisfaction as she notices a slight nervous lilt woven through the melodic sound.

Being completely infatuated may mean less arguments, but Brooke has found that it doesn't necessarily have to mean no teasing. In fact, she thinks teasing Sam is an entirely new, fun way to spend her time. She enjoys it immensely. It can prove to be risky though, as her brain doesn't always want to think about her doing this kind of safe, clean teasing. No, sometimes it can get very dirty. And Brooke thinks that's fun too.

Brooke lets out a sort. A loud, honest to goodness snort, which is more than enough to cause a dark eyebrow to raise in question.

"You're playing the jaguar? Oh Sam, please, you're only aiding Nicole in her merciless task to prove you're other than human by choosing such animalistic representations of yourself." Brooke finds she just can't help herself sometimes. "I mean, granted, as someone who has to deal with you and your mess twenty-four seven, I think it's a accurate portrayal but still." She makes a tut tut noise while wagging her finger in the other girl's direction. "You are so totally not helping your argument." Sam just sit there, dumbfounded. Sputtering over words she thinks might maybe, possibly, somehow defend her, but that come out garbled. Until finally she settles for the muffled by clenched teeth reply that is,

"Pick. Your. Person. Brooke."

"Ooh, retract those claws, Sammy." Brooke is positively gleeful. And Sam hates, **hates **that she finds it cute. Suddenly, her brown eyes widen and begin to shine with renewed hope though, as she watches Brooke do as she's told.

"Nina Williams." And now Sam is laughing. Something about the situation, something that has escaped her housemate, is apparently priceless. So priceless in fact, it has actually reduced the reporter to tears.

"Oh my god, Brooke." Sam manages to get out between bouts of laughter. "Do you just see blonde hair and are drawn to it or something?" She is regarded, open mouthed.

"I resent that."

"Resent it all you want, it doesn't stop it from being true." More giggles follow. "Add that to the fact that you pick the character that has an unstable relationship with her sister…. And I find this all really funny." Brooke just rolls her eyes and chooses not to pay attention for the moment.

The fight is on.

There is a flurry of motion on screen.

And it's over.

"Wha…. How…."

"Is the writer out of words? Really Sammy, I'm shocked." Brooke is grinning again. If Sam weren't so distracted by her incredulity, she would probably be distracted by the slight crinkles that appear in the corner of Brooke's hazel eyes, like tiny smiles reflecting the bigger one. Instead, Sam's own eyes narrow.

"You're a total button masher!" Sam fumes, dramatically. "That's like… cheating! You need to be methodical, know the moves, otherwise-otherwise…. It's not fair!" Brooke chuckles and sets a look on Sam that, she is aware in the back of her mind, makes her skin tingle. It's smouldering, and challenging and it kind of makes Sam feel as though she should look away. She doesn't.

"Gee, real mature, Samantha." A growl fills the space between them. Neither know who it comes from.

"It was a fluke. Round two is mine."

"Whatever you say, Tippy." Sam doesn't reply.

Round two begins.

Within seconds Sam has made the fatal mistake of getting her computer generated counterpart too close to Brooke's, and suddenly the cheerleader is putting the one move she does to effective use. There's a flash of purple sparks and King 2 is caught in a move he can't escape from.

"Hey! When did you learn to do that?!" Sam shouts, alarmed and with wide eyes. Not paying close enough attention, King has gotten back up and lethal assassin, Nina Williams is on him in seconds. Purple sparks flash again. "Brooke! You can't keep doing that! You're cheating."

"Oh, no? Could you pull out the rule book and point me to the chapter on not using moves that work because it's cheating? 'Cause if we could clear this up, that would be great. You should really pay attention to what's happening."

"I am!"

"No, I think you're staring a little to the left and about six inches south of where you should be looking." Instantly, Sam's face is beet red and it feels as though the blood in her veins has been replaced with liquid fire, but she can only focus on that for a moment. She's been caught in the same move for a third time. With a sly check to the side, Brooke notes that Sam has apparently abandoned well mastered and calculated moves in favour of frantic button mashing. It's to no avail. Seconds later she's greeted with familiar words.

"Nina Williams wins!"

There's stunned silence for a long moment. Sam, still unable to comprehend that Brooke had said what she had and wishing her face would drain of it newly acquired colour. Brooke, also unable to believe she'd said that, but very much enjoying the reaction it had caused.

"Yeah, you know, I don't know what I was thinking. I'll just leave you to it. I have a game of Dance, Dance Revolution the cheerleader expansion I need to get back to." Smirking, Brooke plops her extra controller into Sam's lap as she walks by.

"I beat the game." Is the mournful, miserable, pitiful statement Sam makes as she seems to awaken from her stupor, not even sure where to begin to come up with a comeback for Brooke's comment. She turns her head to look at the blonde. "How do you even know how to play this game?"

"Come on, Sam." Brooke's eyes seem to drift over her for a moment. It doesn't help the temperature in the room. Sam gets flustered and takes a second to look away and gather herself. "You're not always home for me to spar verbally with, so I turned to virtually punching and kicking computer generated images until they bleed to deal with my excess energy." Brooke makes some sort of swaying motion with her hips to emphasise her point. Sam thinks she's going to pass out. Much to her dismay, she has to clear her throat.

"You hustled me." Brooke sets an innocent half smile on Sam, who all but forgets what it is they're talking about. _"You __**have **__to stop thinking about ways to help her burn off excess energy!"_

"You kinda deserved it." Sam opens her mouth to protest, but can't think of anything to say. Instead, she and Brooke regard each other for a moment. "I'm sure next time you'll beat me." The snarky comment breaks the tense moment and Sam hurls a cushion from the sofa at her, smiling despite herself. Brooke ducks out into the hallway to avoid it.

"Go away!"

"I'm going, I'm going!" Sam settles herself back into position.

"_I cannot believe that just happened."_ She shakes her head, smile still on her face. _"Shouldn't have expected anything else. Brooke is perfect at everything, why not video games?"_ "Oof!" A cushion has collided with the back of her head. Now, Sam stands up, snaps her body around and finds Brooke standing in the doorway. The blonde is practically bouncing with…. Something, Sam doesn't know. There's a fire in her eyes that she used to only see when they argued and fought, but it's somehow different. Like everything is different between them lately. "Brooke, you are a total-" The rest of the sentence is drowned out by Brooke's shriek, because Sam has left her position in front of the couch and has taken after the other, now sprinting, girl. Laughter follows them as they thunder up the stairs, while one of them hides behind a locked door and the other pounds on it, hurling all kinds of empty threats at the wooden surface.

Brooke loves to tease. And Sam loves it when she does.


	5. Crazy

**Jaymie Leeds Cullen** - Thanks so much! I'm really glad you liked it. Teasing is awesome ;) And look! A continuation! D

**Krumnut** - 90's games rock! lol. Granted they aren't the most sophisticated, but still... I'm really glad you enjoyed this ) Thanks for commenting.

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Crazy

School is the worst. She's sure Nicole knows. How, or why she hasn't said anything yet is a mystery to her. Maybe she's afraid of having her suspicions confirmed, worried what that might mean for her. God forbid she may have to climb down her social ladder for any reason. Whatever the reason, Brooke is glad of it. It did make for a stressful day though. Constantly afraid of being figured out. Brooke wishes she didn't care. Or get caught staring, which she was sure had almost happened countless times that afternoon. Because Sam had shown up at Glamazon practise.

Brooke had almost broken her neck. If the force of her snapping it in the brunette's direction had been any stronger, she was sure she would have. She had thought she was seeing things at first, but no. There she was, with Harrison, Lily and Carmen walking along side her. Nicole, being Nicole, had barked the usual insults their way, but Sam has just laughed it off and shook her head. Then her eyes had found Brooke's, and Sam's laughter had faded to a smile, and she'd lifted a hand and waved her fingers at Brooke. And Brooke thought she would die.

Needless to say, with Sam's brown eyes watching her from the bleachers, it had been very hard for her to concentrate on cheerleader routines. Whenever she had glanced that way, they had been on her. Analysing her every movement and Brooke had grown hot and flushed under the scrutiny. She found Sam was very good at carrying on conversations when she wasn't really paying attention. Lily, Harrison and Carmen had all been talking to her at some point, and Brooke had seen Sam's lips move, but her eyes remain focused on the field. She had wondered why none of the reporter's friends had noticed.

Even now, as Brooke enters a quieter than normal Palace and places her car keys on the table in the hallway leading from the front door, she wonders why Sam was so blatantly obvious in her staring. She was no fool, she knew how Sam felt about her. She saw it every time Sam looked at, or was in a ten foot radius of her, even when she was trying so desperately to hide it. The point was, Sam did usually try to hide it. Today, she hadn't. Brooke had felt like she was being mentally undressed for the duration of the entire practise, and then before she could approach Sam when practise was done, Brooke caught sight of her leaving.

"_Oh god."_ Brooke stalls mid-step. _"I wonder if she mentally undresses me a lot. I wonder how she pictures me naked." _She balks at the thought. _"I don't even like seeing myself naked!" _She makes her way towards the kitchen, a kind of disturbed yet thoughtful frown on her face. _"I can't imagine willingly picturing it…." _Brooke can put her hand on her heart and honestly say she has never, ever pictured anyone naked. She wonders now if maybe it's something she's been missing out on. Her thoughts drift slightly as reaches the kitchen. _"I wonder what she, hey, what's this?"_

She's stopped in front of the island. There's a note. Brooke's slim fingers pull it towards the edge of the counter and pick it up.

_Brooke,_

_Carmen is having emotional trauma. Lily and I, being the diligent, caring best friends that we are, are planning to console her with ice cream and chocolate. With that kind of arsenal, it shouldn't take too long, so don't make food. I'll bring home Chinese. Sorry._

_Later,_

_Sam._

_PS - Nice moves at C-Practise. I almost cracked a rib when MC tripped over Poppy's feet and then called her Kankle-Mama. Don't roll your eyes, you thought it was funny too, I saw you trying not to laugh. _

There is some kind of doodle at the end of the sentence, that Brooke correctly judges to be a smiley face with its tongue sticking out.

She stares at the note a moment longer. She wonders how Sam knew she would roll her eyes.

"_Same reason she knows how to push every single one of my buttons. She's pays more attention than is necessary." _Brooke smiles. _"Not that that isn't totally flattering and endearing."_

Sam drives Brooke crazy. Brooke doesn't know how much longer she can endure afternoons like the one she had just been made to live through.

"_She spends a solid hour looking at me, staring at me, practically devouring me with her stupid doe eyes, then she disappears. No 'Hi Brooke', no explanations, no grand declarations of love that I __**know **__are buried not so deep inside her, and then there's this note."_

She stares at it. Her fingers clench and flex convulsively, crinkling the paper just slightly. Sam drives Brooke crazy, because Sam reflects everything the cheerleader feels. Doesn't speak up for the same reasons, and she wishes she could grab Sam by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. Because that's what Brooke wishes she could do to herself.

But she's afraid.

Of rejection. Of being wrong. Of having Sam laugh in her face, even though Brooke is one hundred percent sure she's right about this, and that Sam would never do that. Of having Sam tell her exactly how she feels. Of not knowing how to respond. Of having Sam and then losing her. Of not being perfect enough.

So, Brooke stares at the note. She folds it in half and slips it into a pocket, feeling foolish as she does so. It's just a note. She tells herself this as she climbs the stairs to the second level.

"_It's just a note."_

Her fingers brush over the denim material of the pocket. She tells herself once more, even as she realises that it is so much more than that. Because Sam took the time to write it.


	6. Death

**JLC** - You're making me blush! Again! Thank you SO much for all your kind words :) They really do make my day. Thanks!

**The Outskirts** - Thank you! I feel like i'm getting more into the groove a little, so it's great that you think so too :) I think it's awesome that you can picture my chapters as if they were actual episodes, thats like so... flattering. Lol. Thank you!

_**So i'm on kind of a mini update roll right now ;) It's tiny, but i hope you'll still enjoy it. Had an idea and had to get it down.. i'm sure you know how it goes. ;)**_

Death

Sam is dying.

The warm breeze caresses the sun into a sleepy descent in the evening sky. A sky that is painted with a myriad of pinks and purples and oranges. Birds sing their melodic lullabies in the nearby trees, as the moon begins to faintly break its way into its staring role of the night. It is the kind of night poets have written verse about, the kind of night artists have tried to paint, hoping to capture its perfection, but have had it held just slightly out of their reach. It is the kind of night romantics dream of.

And Sam is dying.

It's humid. The heat makes her skin prickle until it stings. Sweat beads on her chest and runs down through the valley of her breasts and over her stomach. It's hot, but not too unpleasantly so. She wishes she could move. She can't remember what it feels like to be able to stir her limbs. Her mouth is parched, her tongue is dry and cracks audibly when she tries to move it. Sam thinks it's ironic. It's one of the warmest days of the year so far, and she's frozen. It's the most perfect day to be alive.

And Sam is dying.

Because Brooke had innocently decided it would be a good idea to go for a swim. And Brooke is in a bikini. Brooke is wet, and wet, Sam has decided, is a good look on her. And she's beckoning Sam towards the pool with a finger and a smirk. And she's wearing a damn bikini and Sam can't move.

Brooke is killing Sam. Because every time she looks at her, Sam's breath evaporates and her heart is so taken it forgets how to beat.

Brooke is killing Sam slowly with her eyes. With the way she moves. With how her hair looks when it's been mussed and lovingly tousled by gentle barely there waves. With her skin and thoughts of how soft it would be if Sam could only touch it. With her lips and how they seem to have the ability to draw Sam's eyes to them whenever they should so feel the need.

"Come on in, Sammy. The water's cool." Brooke says.

And Sam is liquid fire.


	7. Flying

**JC** - Lol. Nope no secret screen writer of any type, no secret identities... although both of those would be pretty awesome. ;) I'm really glad you're still enjoying this story, hope you like the next part too D

**The Outskirts** - Haha! "Hottest no sexin'" that is THE best compliment i think i've ever recieved! Sweet, thanks ;) I'll try and sneak some more of that in somewhere.

**_Note - Okay, so i kind of feel like i rambled with this one.. but i wanted to do a Brooke POV in conjunction with the last chapter. This is what i came up with. _**

Flying

Brooke is flying.

She can see trees and tiny people. The houses are not much more than squareish blobs. The water making up lakes glitters and shines like nothing Brooke has ever seen before. The sky above is blue/black and dusty orange, slowly filling itself to the brim with stars that smile and wink at her.

Brooke is flying. Brooke has never felt this alive.

She's surrounded by water. It holds her gently, caressing her and teasing her skin. She is aware of everything, it seems. The scent of the breeze and the colour of the heat. How the sand feels between her toes as her feet skim the bottom of the body of water she has all but lost herself in.

Brooke is flying, but is grounded at the same time. Grounded by a feeling. By a look. By a person.

By Sam.

Every day of her life, Brooke feels caged in some way. Under a constant watchful eye at school, be it by her peers or by people who are far too interested in her popularity status to be seriously considered a friend for life. Sometimes she likes Nicole, sometimes she pretends to be the best friend a person could ask for. Others, Brooke wonders if Nicole would kill her while she slept if promised private box seats in the stadium of life. And Brooke doesn't think too seriously about that question, because she's not sure she'll like the answer.

Brooke feels caged by her father, by food, by the desperate need to be perfect and the utter lack of energy needed to accomplish that. She feels caged by feelings she can't give a voice to. She feels trapped because she wants to so badly.

And even when Sam makes it harder, she makes it easier. She doesn't judge Brooke, anymore, by how popular she is. Brooke doesn't, always, feel pressured to be perfect around her. Sam, though she'll never ever admit it, likes Brooke because she's Brooke. Not for some social stature deemed unreachable by most. Sometimes, Brooke laughs at her popularity. If she weren't so afraid, she'd gladly give up the position she tripped and fell into. If she weren't so petrified of what would happen. If she didn't feel like she had some obligation to Nicole, to her father, to her distant mother, to part of herself.

If.

Brooke's fingers play with the water, almost trying to contain it, enjoying the feeling as it slips through them. Her eyes lift to find Sam once again. Still standing at the beach's end, with waves gently lapping over her feet. She's wearing a bikini, Brooke has noted and taken advantage of that several times.

Sam isn't looking at her. She's staring at the water. Her tongue appears and moistens her lips, before slipping back inside her mouth and planting itself firmly in her cheek.

Brooke is flying again.

Now, Sam is looking at her. She wonders if time has stopped. She can't feel the water moving anymore.

Brooke is afraid of heights. They make her feel unsafe, without a sense of control she likes to have, like she could fall and plummet at any moment. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Sam makes her feel the same. An internal loss of control that is freeing and frightening at the same moment. It makes her feel like she could snap any second. Like she won't be able to take it anymore. She wonders if that day will every come.

"Come on in, Sammy. The water's cool."

She wonders if that day is today. Because Sam is looking at her with pure, undiluted fear. Like she might turn around and let her legs carrying her as far away as fast as possible. Or like she might break and sprint the short distance between them and throw herself at Brooke out of sheer desperation. Kissing her passionately under the dying rays of the sunset. Like she might not be able to contain her own lust and need. And both prospects scare her beyond belief. So she stands, immobile.

If Sam keeps looking at Brooke that way, like she wants to crawl inside Brooke's skin, she thinks she may either spontaneously combust or melt and become one with the water. She thinks both would be tricky to explain. So she concentrates very hard, tries not to stare too long, and begs her beating heart to slow a little.

If being ten feet away from Sam, and having the girl just look at her, can make Brooke feel that alive, like she's grown wings and taken to the sky, she wonders what Sam feels when she looks at her.


	8. Water

**The Outskirts** - Hmm, it seems to have happened again. Hope you enjoy this as much as the last ramble ;)

**Jaymie Ullie** - I'm having a hard time keeping up with your names changes! Lol. ) Thanks so much again for the kind words. Delving into fictional character's psyche is so much fun, so i'm glad you're enjoying what i'm finding there ;)

**chantel** - Thanks so much! I won't lie, i'm so stoked your in love with it. Let's see if i can keep it that way D

**_Okay, so i know some people in the fanfic community sometimes roll their eyes at songfics. I know, i'm sure i've done it myself. So i'm giving fair warning... song fic ahead. I had a kind of epiphany for another series of fics, so this is me kind of testing the waters for a possible future set of stories. Won't say too much though, cuz knowing me it'll never happen. ;)_**

Disclaimer - Characters within do not belong to me. I'm just borrowing them for my own pleasure D Song used in this fic is called 'If I Needed Someone' and was written by the late George Harrison of The Beatles.

* * *

Water

Sam has always prided herself on being strong. She has worked hard to create a hard outer exterior to protect her softer inner workings from harm. She detests the thought of people perceiving her as weak for any reason. She despises the thought of actually feeling that way. She hates that spot inside of her that feels it, buried so deep inside she can't reach it to yank it out. She knows, she's tried.

Sam doesn't cry. At least, she tries hard not to. She didn't cry until months after her father died. Even then, it was a quiet, quick bout of large tears and heaving shoulders and then it was over. Her mother worries she hasn't grieved properly, Sam knows this. She doesn't disagree, she simply doesn't know how to without feeling weak and helpless. And she hates feeling that way. So she doesn't. That way she isn't.

At least, she likes to believe she isn't.

At school, Sam likes to play make believe. She likes to dress up in clothes that don't belong to her and wear an attitude that isn't completely her own. Sam was always very good at hiding during hide and seek as a child. She's carried her abilities through.

Whenever she had scuffed a knee, or played a little too roughly with the boys, she would retain a determinedly stiff upper lip. No one would see her cry. Whenever someone had teased her, she had bitten her tongue to stem the tears, and rolled her eyes in annoyance and walked away.

When she was ten, she had seen the most amazing typewriter in the window of an antique store. Old fashioned, faded buttons, she had thought it was magnificent. She had made her parents stop so she could stare at it for five solid minutes. Fantasies of sitting in front of it and typing out stories and reports filled her to the brim. She wanted it so badly.

She didn't ask for it. It was far too expensive and she knew that. She didn't want to feel the disappointment. But she wanted it so badly.

"Sam?" The voice floats through her reverie, bending it and breaking it. Her eyes focus and she's startled to find blue eyes looking at her questioningly from the doorway. "Sorry, I knocked but you were miles away." A few short week ago, Sam would have ripped Brooke's head off for 'bursting' into her room in such a way. She doesn't seem to mind it too much lately though. Brooke can come and go as she please. Sam, of course, doesn't tell her that. "Are you okay?"

"_Smile like you mean it."_

"Yeah, I'm fine." It's a wider than necessary grin, a little over zealous. Brooke isn't stupid.

"You sure?" She looks at Sam with such concern, with such genuine concern that it breaks Sam. She can feel herself begin to slip. And Sam doesn't like that.

"Brooke, I said I was fine, okay?" It's biting and snappish and Brooke is thrown off guard. The concern is replaced with startled hurt. Her head ducks, hair falling out from behind her ear to curtain a sad face, sad blue eyes.

"Sorry." She begins to back out of the room. The last thing she wants these days is to piss her house mate off. Sam's eyes close, her forehead creasing just slightly, and she brings hand to rub at it.

"Brooke, wait." The blonde pauses. "Look, I'm sorry. My day has just sucked more than Satan's monthly liposuction." Brooke makes a slightly disapproving face, but lets the comment go in the sake of peace. She smiles in understanding.

"I get it." There's exactly five seconds of silence. Sam is counting. Brooke is looking at her. "Do you wanna…." The air in front of Brooke is suddenly assaulted by a waving hand as she lets the sentence die. Sam shrugs and shakes her head, suddenly finding that, should it become an Olympic sport one day, she is a serious contender for the gold in picking at bedspreads.

"Nah. I'm not…. It isn't…." She takes a breath and looks at Brooke again.

"_Smile like you mean it, Sam."_

"It's nothing. Really." Once again, Brooke smiles. She nods and leaves. Sam is alone again.

A loud sigh fills her room. She lets herself fall backwards onto her bed and closes her eyes.

_**If I needed someone to love**_

_**You're the one that I'd be thinking of**_

_**If I needed someone**_

She brings a hand to her face and, screwing her eyes shut tightly, holds the bridge of her nose. She's been thinking about the typewriter a lot. It was silly really, she didn't know why, a few months later and ten year old Sam had forgotten all about it for the time being. Upon reflecting, the typewriter hadn't been a big deal. The act of wanting it so badly, however…. Sam could still feel. Creeping up through her feet and settling in the pit of her stomach. So fresh. Almost tangible.

She's always hated wanting things she can't have. She's tried not to be that kind of person. Sam McPherson is idealistic. She does not delude herself with dreams of grandeur, filled with antique typewriters she can't afford. She doesn't let things get to her. She blows them away before they can get close.

In an ideal world, Sam would never need anything from any one. In her experience, needing things, needing people breeds disappointment in the truck loads. Her mother, for example. Sam needed her, depended on her to make decisions Sam couldn't, and what does she do? Gets engaged two years after her father died, to someone Sam initial deemed unsuitable, who was as bad as she had thought Brooke was. It had destroyed her. To think her mother had had to find solace and companionship in the arms of the dark side, because she wasn't good enough. The two of them as a family, wasn't enough. Now, she realises that that wasn't, isn't the case. That her mother had found love again, something she thought she'd never feel after Sam's father, and she was going to hold onto it. Still, it didn't make the crushing disappointment and hurt she had first felt disappear.

_**If I had some more time to spend**_

_**Then I guess I'd be with you my friend**_

_**If I needed someone**_

When she was 9, she'd broken her leg climbing a tree in a nearby park. She couldn't remember another time she'd been in so much physical pain. She'd been rushed to the hospital, casted up and then had to endure what seemed like an eternity of agony, otherwise known as physical therapy. She'd felt helpless. Like some kind of invalid that couldn't even stand up to get dressed in the morning. Needing the physiotherapist to help her balanced so she could learn how to walk on it again. She'd hated it.

_**Had you come some other day**_

_**Then it might not have been like this**_

_**But you see now I'm too much in love**_

Sam seems to have found herself in a situation that is as similar as it is entirely alien to her. It has undertones of familiarity. Wanting something she can't have, needing someone to balance her, needing someone period. All things she despises. All things she can't seem to stop herself feeling. They eat her from the inside out, make her feel all kinds of wonderful, goad and trick her into giving into them. Sam thinks its infuriating. She thinks she's worked damn hard to put up walls she can hide behind, and it angers her to think, to know they can be taken down so easily.

All Brooke has to do it look at her.

_**Carve your number on my wall**_

_**And maybe you will get a call from me**_

_**If I needed someone**_

_**Ah, ah, ah, ah **_

Her damn smile, her damn stupidly dreamy smile, the one that makes Sam go weak at the knees has been burned onto the back of her eyelids like some sort of evil, cursed barcode from hell. Making it a literal hell on Earth should Sam accidentally close her eyes unprepared and become assaulted by Brooke's damn, perfect smile, causing her to, usually, stumble and almost fall on her ass in the middle of some crowded hallway or off the chair at the dinner table. Stupid Brooke and her stupid smile and it's supidly annoying ability to strike her dumb in its presence. Sam hates that Brooke can do that to her, hates that she likes it when it happens. The anger and frustration only comes later.

_**If I had some more time to spend**_

_**Then I guess **__**I'd be with you my friend**_

_**If I needed someone**_

When she's had time to reflect on what Brooke makes her feel. When she's had time to realise, fleetingly, that she **lives **for what Brooke makes her feel. She thrives off it. She needs it to get through the day.

_**Had you come some other day**_

_**Then it might not have been like this**_

_**But you see now I'm too much in love**_

Because Sam's in love with her. Every inch of her screams out and wants to reach for the cheerleader, needs her. An unstoppable force, like the strongest water current. Forceful and fluid. Needs to be looked at by her, she needs Brooke to speak to her, needs some form of contact, or it's not long before Sam thinks she might go insane. And although death by Brooke, she thinks, would be a nice way to go, she's not quite ready to say goodbye to the world just yet. Much as she sometimes feels that would be the best option for her. Sometimes the wanting gets too much. Lately she's found a way to battle that, though. Though some may call it 'asking for trouble' Sam likes to think of it as a brief wade into a lake she's forbidden to enter. She feels it pulling at her insides, even as she tries to push it away. The water is calling.

_**Carve your number on my wall**_

_**And maybe you will get a call from me**_

_**If I needed someone **_

_**Ah, ah**_

She swings her legs over the side of the bed and pushes herself up off the mattress. She pauses on the edge of the bed long enough to think,

"_It's fine. I'm just gonna apologise. It's not like I need to see her."_

The damn of denial has broken, the water rushes freely. The wreckage remains though, lying just beneath the surface, out of sight.

Sam likes to think she's a strong person. It's with a strong, steady fist she knocks at her housemate's door. Her strong, rigid stride only falters slightly when Brooke's voice floats towards her, telling her she can come in. Her strong, slender finger twitches, barely noticeable, as Sam reaches for the door handle and turns it.

"_I like swimming."_

Brooke is sitting on her bed, book in her hand, wearing sweats and a baggy hoodie. In her mess of thoughts, Sam wonders if Nicole knows she's owns such clothes. Then the thought is gone, replaced by something else, a feeling she has grown used to and uncomfortable with. She smiles bashfully, much to her dismay. Now she can't stop wonder if Brooke knows how cute she looks.

"Hi." Is all she can think of to say. Brooke eyebrows raise gently and a quiet laugh curls her lips in a kind of mirth that makes Sam wonder if she's part of a joke and doesn't realise it.

"Hey Sam." She hates it when Brooke says her name. "Ready to talk about it?" Sam doesn't think she'll ever be ready.

"I just wanted to say sorry. Again." Brooke shrugs it off, closing her book, giving her full attention over to the other girl.

"I think being teenagers in high school gives us some sort of hall pass to life that allows us to be pissy now and again." At that, Sam laughs. Her shoulders feel lighter. Brooke waves her in with a hand. Sam freezes, ever so slightly, then melts and joins the blonde on the bed. She's well aware what kind of dangerous territory she's in. She finds she's caring less and less. She's close enough to Brooke she can smell her shampoo, her perfume. Close enough she can almost feel how soft her hair is, how silky her skin is. Brooke tilts her head, catches Sam watching her a fraction of a second before the brunette can look away. And laughs. Right from the belly. Her face is bright, split with a grin.

And whatever strength Sam thinks she has, crumbles.


	9. Realizations

**A/N**: Oookay, after spending most of the evening thoroughly distracted, i'm finally posting this. I got completely carried away, my babble got its groove on, so it's longer than my usual chapters ;) Also, this is my first attempt at writing Mary Cherry and Nicole. The prospect scared the crap out of me. I hope i didn't do too badly. Once again, thanks to everyone for the awesome feedback :)

* * *

Realizations

Brooke has never considered murder as an option before. Not really. Generally, in her mind, it was definitely a bad thing that only bad people did. However, she is coming to realise that apparently, it is very easy to decide that exceptions can be made.

"Brookie, ah just want ta make sure that you ain't bein' blackmailed bah that skanky, fiery hellcat you have the un-for-choo-nit pleasure of calling your soon to be stepsister." Mary Cherry is looking at her reflection with what Brooke suspects would be concern, if she could move her eyebrows enough to frown. She would guess her monthly botox injection was to blame, but couldn't be sure. "Ah only have your best in-tear-ists at heart." While Brooke doubts the statement, she thinks that Mary Cherry means it slightly more than the other blonde occupying the elaborately decorated room otherwise known as The Novak.

"Brooke, hun, our wonderfully psychotic friend" Mary Cherry smiles widely at the compliment "is speaking the truth. We just want to make sure things between you and McSpam McScummy are okay." Nicole is looking at Brooke with wide, concerned eyes. The girl should be given an Oscar. Brooke turns away from the mirror and looks at them with raised eyebrows.

"You guys need to let this go. With the merging of households, this was going to happen eventually. We couldn't go on fighting forever, if only for the reason that our parents wouldn't stand for it. So, a truce has been made." Mary Cherry opens her mouth to speak again, probably to offer the services of a hit man, but Brooke's hand shoots into the air, stopping her. "For the last time, Sam is not blackmailing me. There are no threats of melting my Jimmy Choos with a blowtorch and she definitely isn't doing experimental brainwashing. Please, please get off this." There is silence. Neither of her friends look convinced by her words, but they say no more. Brooke goes back to applying make up in the mirror. She can see Nicole staring at her reflection.

"Okay hun, but remember we're here for you" Brooke meets her eyes in the mirror. "if you need to tell us anything." Her palms are sweaty and her heart is in her throat. She knows Nicole knows. Knows Nicole is just waiting for the perfect time to spring questions and accusations on her. Brooke thinks that time could have been now, if Mary Cherry hadn't been with them, and Brooke is grateful the Texan is there. She isn't ready for that conversation yet. Not ready to explain what she thinks she's doing. Not ready to tell Nicole she can shove her popularity where the sun doesn't shine.

Brooke has been reflecting. On how popularity is a fickle thing. One day you're on top and the next you're down and being trampled on. She realised a long time ago that, if given the chance, Nicole would walk all over her to get to the top of the social ladder. It doesn't disturb her as much as others might think it should. With Nicole, it wouldn't be personal. It would simply be because popularity is the most important thing to the scheming blonde and she'll do anything to keep it and rise within its ranks. It was a strange type of friendship they had. Brooke often wondered if it was worth it.

Brooke has come to a realisation. Popularity isn't everything. She was quite surprised the earth hadn't imploded when she had discovered that. To her, it's become a kind of security blanket. Something she wraps herself in when she's afraid of life and her position in it. When she feels like she isn't needed or wanted, she remembers that people at school look up to her. Even if that thought is strange and odd, it anchors her in a way. Because, she thinks, that if people admire her, look to her as a role model, for whatever reason, it means she's needed for something.

Sometimes, Brooke feels worthless. Like she can't do anything right and isn't worth people's time and effort. Those moments usually lead to another bout of not eating and seclusion in her room. She doesn't want to burden anyone with her presence. Fleetingly, Brooke thinks she would be better off dead. Sometimes she cries. Huge, devastating tears, because she hates herself. And doesn't know how to make that go away.

And then there's a knock at her door. A soothingly sweet voice is asking for entrance. And hopeful, but unsure, brown eyes meet hers. And everything is okay again. Sam is smiling at her, shuffling nervously in the doorway. And she has no idea that Brooke knows why she's nervous. Why she hesitates. It's endearing and cute, and a little frightening, because as soon as Brooke sees her, she feels nervous too. But more than that, she feels a rush of…. Something. It's exciting and it makes Brooke feel happy again. It makes Brooke feel needed in a way that is entirely different to the way her classmates do. Sam makes her feel wanted. They were enemies. They, to the untrained eye, hated each other. Then something changed, something fell into place for both of them and it has resulted in moments like that. Sam knocking on her door, and not to yell at her or throw a towel that had been discarded on the floor and forgotten about in her face. Sam goes to her room to be close to her, Brooke knows that. Brooke knows exactly how Sam feels. She wishes Sam would tell her.

She wishes she were less of a coward so she could tell Sam herself.

Still, she has come to a realisation, even if she is afraid to act. Popularity isn't everything, there are some things that are more important. To her, it's Sam. Popularity isn't the thing holding her back anymore. While she is a little jostled by the thought of having it fall out from beneath her, she's more taken with what might happen once everything is out in the open. At least, she's taken with the good things that could happen. The bad is what is holding her back, trapping her like a wild animal. She doesn't like to think about it, but knows it's inevitable that she does.

She sails back into the reality harbour when she feels a hand come to rest on her shoulder. She is sick and tired of Mary Cherry's outlandish accusations and is milliseconds from biting her head off as she turns around. And realises it isn't the psychotic southerner that she's faced with.

Her skin is on fire.

* * *

"Are you seriously telling us that you are managing to coexist semi peacefully with a girl you once referred to as 'the Devil's most popular and bitch-faced spawn'?" Sam's brow creases as she cringes at the comment and closes her locker. She plants her tongue in her cheek, regarding Carmen, who made the very astute point.

"Yeah, okay, so maybe that wasn't my most eloquent or… Friendly moment." Harrison's eyebrows shoot to his hairline and his face adopts a 'you think?' expression that makes her blood itch. She fights the overwhelming urge to slap him. "**Look**. Whatever feuds Brooke and I have entered ourselves into in the past, is exactly that. The past."

"But-" Carmen tried to interject. This time Sam raises her eyebrows and her eyes widened slightly, a warning that Carmen maybe shouldn't interrupt her right now.

"But nothing. What's the problem? You guys have been telling me how big of a bitch I am to Brooke for, like, ever now! I'm trying to stop that."

"Okay, Sam, take a pill." Sam rolls her eyes so they're trained in Lily's direction. "We just wanted to know what was up."

"No, you wanted to know if I had some sinister ulterior motive so you could try and talk me out of it." Hammer. Nail head.

"Well can you blame us, Sam?" Harrison asks. Sam realises that she can't. "I mean that **is** usually the case when you guys call a truce." She sighs heavily and slumps against the lockers, books held close to her chest.

"I know. This time is different though." Lily is eyeing her with something Sam can't quite put her finger on. Her lips form an 'o' and she looks away from the shorter girl, a little unnerved by the stare.

"I'm pretty sure that's what you said last time." Carmen is quick to point out again. Sam is close to blowing. She likes to think she's a fairly understanding person. She gets why her friends have a hard time believing she has good intentions, but it hurts and annoys her that even after she's told them, they won't let it go.

She is not, under any circumstances, ready to discuss the real reasons she is no longer goading Brooke into fights. She isn't ready to discuss why she started goading Brooke into fights in the first place. She hates that she's caged by feelings and fears and is tired of constantly searching for lies she can use as cover stories. It exhausts her. It makes her snappy.

"Okay, fine." So she snaps. "You guys don't want to believe me?" She uses her shoulder to push herself off the lockers and shoots her friends an icy look. "Whatever. Don't believe a word I say, go on thinking I'm scheming, I don't care. I know that I'm being sincere." _"I only hope Brooke does too_._"_ And she spins on a heal, storming away from them.

The thought of Brooke suspecting her of having an ulterior motive for her sudden niceness, rocks Sam to the core. She can't stand it. In the space of ten seconds it has driven her completely insane.

"_Does she think that? God, I hope not. It's not like I've really given her a reason to think otherwise. I'll give the guys one thing, they're right about me being a bitch to Brooke. Why is that my default defence mechanism? Can't handle something, so I turn into the biggest bitch this side of the equator. Way to alienate people, Sam."_ She grunts loudly, attracting the attention of a few passing students, but she pays them no heed. _"Brooke is the last person I want to be like that with."_ Sam sighs heavily and readjusts the books in her arms as she turns the corner.

Sam hates that her anger has the ability to switch itself into the autopilot position with no word of warning. She hates being driven by an uncontrollable force and it's worst with Brooke, who's an uncontrollable force all by herself. And Sam knows why it's worst with her.

She is so in love with Brooke that it scares the hell out of her. Because she can call it love, because she knows that's exactly what it is. The feelings are so strong, they can creep up on her so suddenly, that she simply doesn't know how to handle them. So she tried to ignore them. Which didn't help at all, because every time Brooke would enter her line of vision they'd rush back to her tenfold, and Sam doesn't like having the reins of control yanked from her hands. So she'd get angry, hurl insults at Brooke because anger was easier to deal with. It was familiar. Safe. So she thought.

Then they'd both taken things one step too far. Sam had pushed and pushed and they'd both said things they hadn't meant. The wounds the words had caused were deep, and painful, and Sam had understood the answer wasn't in anger. The hurt caused by the words was something entirely different and far more devastating than she had anticipated. She couldn't handle Brooke hurting her like that and she definitely wasn't prepared to inflict that kind of pain upon the cheerleader.

So she'd stopped. And found it strange how easy it was. Not to bait Brooke, not to project this front of strong dislike. Sam has found she likes openly liking Brooke. Being friends. The atmosphere is not constantly charged with the possibility of a riot exploding at one wrong word. For Sam, it's charged with something else, but she takes solace in the fact that she's pretty sure Brooke hasn't noticed.

Now, if she could only get people to believe she was genuine. The problem is that it's brand new to them. That up until now, they thought she hated Brooke. They thought the change had happened over night and that reeked of suspicion. Only Sam had never hated Brooke.

"_I get why they doubt me, I do. It just sucks that they have so little faith in me that they won't believe me when I tell them something. It's not like I haven't been misunderstood before.'_

Distracted, Sam doesn't notice she's about to walk into someone until it's too late. Her books spill out of her hands and scatter across the polished floor.

"Oh, mah gosh, Nikki! Did she damage your fab-u-less gold and dah-mond encrusted bracelet? Did her foul stench seep out of her overly clogged pours and attach itself to your flawless skin?" Mary Cherry's shrill voice is like glass slicing through her ear drums. Sam grimaces and bends down to retrieve her scattered items.

"It seems as though lowly trailer trash-wardrobed, dog faced freak-wannabes are being spared today, Mary Cherry." Nicole stares down at Sam looking smug and infuriated at the same time. "Consider this a warning, Spam. Should your surely flea infested form make contact with my perfectly exquisite and bodacious body again, the consequences shall be dire and incredibly uncomfortable." Sam stands, knowing she's being baited. She doesn't care.

"Sorry Satan, I didn't recognise you without your red jumpsuit, tail and horns. Are they being dry cleaned or did someone finally shove them up your enormous backside in an attempt to improve your mood?" Nicole's eyes widen dangerously, Mary Cherry holds a hand to her chest and adopts a dramatically shocked expression. Sam allows herself a satisfied smirk and adjusts the books in her arms before breezing past them.

"_They are such bitches!"_ Sam fumes silently, throwing the door to The Novak open and trudging inside.

Her feet stop the same instant her heart does. Brooke is standing there, staring at her reflection and at that second Sam wonders, insanely, which Brooke is more beautiful. She shakes her head in an attempt to jog her functions into working order and walks towards the blonde. Who, Sam realises, hasn't even noticed she's entered. Tentatively, and with a hand she tries to stop from shaking, she reaches out to gently rouse the other girl from her thoughts.

Her fingers are burning.

* * *

She feels Brooke jump beneath her touch and the blonde spins around with an aggravated look on her face. That melts away to startled wonder as she settles her eyes on Sam.

"Sam." The way Brooke says it, Sam is unsure if she's startled or not. She offers an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She realises her hand is still on Brooke's shoulder and drops it to her side. "Hoping to fall into Wonderland?" Sam asks, nodding towards the mirror. "I hear things are less complicated on the other side." Brooke laughs gently. She can still feel Sam's hand on her shoulder.

"That's only because everyone is crazy there. Makes you feel less crazy when you're surrounded by likeminded people." Brooke points out, resting the small of her back against the sinks. "Coincidentally, that's why I've struck up a friendship with you." Sam's eyebrows rise at the comment, her face breaking into a wide, playful grin.

"Crazy, am I?" The brunette takes a seat on the plush round couch in the center of the extravagantly decorated bathroom.

"Like only journalists can be." Before, a comment like that would have derailed Sam, and the crash would have been a messy one. Now, Sam's mouth splits wide with her smile, her eyes light up, and she laughs.

"See, now you're confusing crazy with neuroticism."

"And that's better than plain old crazy?" Sam nods, very matter-of-factly and seriously, making Brooke giggle. A real giggle. Sam's heart beats that little bit faster.

"Plain old crazy has no rhyme or reason. Nothing has a place, it's everywhere. Now, being neurotic? That practically demands a strict sense of order." Brooke is shaking her head, laughing.

"I think that's because most people who suffer from neurosis are, or should be in some cases," She quirks an eyebrow pointedly at Sam. "Confined to sterile whitewashed walled environments where ward rules dictate that things **have **to be in order, otherwise the patients go crazy."

"Aaaand we've come full circle." Sam holds her arms out in front of her and brings her hands together, applauding Brooke. Brooke giggles again, feeling silly but making a bending, curtseying motion with her crossed legs. "We should be on the debate team." Brooke's head tilts back as she laughs. Sam finds herself captivated for a few seconds.

"I'd slaughter you." Sam frowns, humour stolen from her by Brooke's words. It's not meant at all the way Sam takes it, and she knows that, but the words still cut at her.

"I meant we'd be on the same side." Brooke's laughter dulls to a bubble that bursts when she recognises the look on Sam's face for what it is. Instantly, she feels the grating claws of guilt tearing at her insides. Even though she knows she doesn't need to. Even though she knows how Sam can take a comment and twist it into something else, often without meaning to. She still feels terrible because she's hurt Sam, however inadvertently, and she never wants to do that.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound like that." Sam attempts a reassuring smile, fails, knows she has, and so shrugs instead. There's a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence as Sam drops her gaze. Brooke feels torn. She wants to say something but is afraid of making the situation worse. Why does Sam have the ability to make her tongue tie itself into knots? She second guesses herself around the other girl. In a situation where she would usually speak her mind, she holds off, afraid. Of too many things to name, but hurting Sam is at the top of the list. Even over being rejected. It's a big part of the reason she's scared to confess to Sam how to feels.

"Brooke…" The word is hushed, hesitant, laced with something the cheerleader can't put her finger on until Sam's eyes return to hers and Brooke finds something she almost never finds in them. Fear. "Are you…" Sam pauses for a heartbeat's length, pushing her tongue into her cheek for a second and frowning. "Do you think I'm being nice to you for a reason other than because I want to?"

As the silence stretches, Sam can feel each piece as it tears away from her heart, breaking it. She can't stand it.

"_How can Brooke think that?"_ Sam dismisses that, running her tongue over her teeth. _"You know how. You're the whole reason she can. You can't blame her for this, you just need to make her realise you actually want to be her friend."_ She sighs. _"Because that's all you're ever going to get, so for the love of God don't let her slip through your fingers."_

Brooke, meanwhile, doesn't even realise Sam has asked a question.

"_**What**__ is her fixation with moving her tongue around like that?"_ Brooke's eyes are wide as she stares at Sam. _"Does she even realise she's doing it? How can she not? It's almost constant movement."_ She swallows, convulsively, as the same tongue runs itself over an incredibly kissable bottom lip. _"Does she have any idea how incredibly sexy it is? Why can't I stop staring at it?" _It's at that point she realises that Sam is speaking again.

"You have every right." She rests her hands on her knees and rocks her body forward and few times, nodding. "I have been a total psycho-bitch with you in the past. I'll admit, I've been nice to you before to get what I wanted, but Brooke-" Desperate to make her point clear, Sam gets to her feet and takes a step towards the blonde. Brooke is looking slightly confused, but alert. She isn't entirely sure what Sam said to bring them into this conversation, but she's very interested to see where the reporter's train of thought is going. There's still that little bit, buried not as deep as she'd often prefer, that likes it when Sam admits she's wrong. "It is so totally different this time."

"How?" The question is unexpected by both. Brooke's head is tilted a little to the side and she's looking at Sam with a small crease between her eyebrows. She'd managed to catch on to what the conversation was about and wanted… well, she wanted to hear something she knew Sam would be thinking but would never say. Unless, possibly, if she were prompted to with alcohol. Brooke stores the idea in her memory banks and waits. She watches the rush of panic dance over Sam's beautiful face, notices her shoulder rise and fall a little faster, sees fear in her eyes for the second time that day, and then it's gone. Sam's mask is back up in place.

"Well, it just…" She fumbles, looking for a suitable lie because, unbeknownst to Sam, they **both **know that's exactly what it is. "Because I don't want to fight anymore." Not a complete lie, it turns out. They stare at each other. Sam's lips form her trademark pout because she can't think of anything else to say. Just the truth, and she sure as heck isn't ready for that. Brooke starts to smile, accepting of the answer, even if she knows there's more to it.

"Neither do I." Sam watches as Brooke tucks her hair behind her ear. She wonders how such a regular, everyday motion can capture her in such a way. Can be sexy.

Brooke feels a rush of, something, in her chest when she realises Sam is staring at her. Not just regular staring, like when you're busy thinking about something else or can't quite make out what you're looking at. The stare is charged with heat and Sam is looking at her like she's aching to reach out and help Brooke with her hair. She's chewing on her lower lip, like there's moments question of whether or not she should. Brooke wishes she would.

It's pointless and self indulgent and can only lead to eventual pain, but Brooke relishes the small touches that go back and forth between them. They're rare, few and far between, and Brooke instigates most of them. She wonders if it's because Sam is scared of not being able to stop at gentle touches. She feels heat rise into her cheeks as she silently hopes that's the reason. She wonders what exactly Sam sees when she looks at Brooke. She knows it's not popularity, because Sam hates that. She knows it's not a cheerleader, at least not completely, because Brooke is well aware that Sam isn't afraid to head down to the field during Glamazon practise if she wants to see a cheerleader. All she knows, is how it makes her feel when the brunette looks at her.

Sam clears her throat. She's looking away, down at her feet, and is flustered. She knows she's been caught. She's blushing and Brooke can't help but think it's adorable.

She wishes Sam would tell her.

"I'm glad." Sam finally says, still looking down at her sneakers. "Fighting with you is kinda like fighting next to a black hole. Kind of sucks all the energy right out of you."

"Yeah." Brooke agrees with a small chuckle. Sam looks up again, a pained expression on her face.

"I just don't want you to think I have some sinister motive for my newly tuned attitude towards you. I don't. I'm just tired of trying to dislike you." She smiles now. "I figure it's not worth the effort. And kind of hopeless." There, in that split second, there's a crack in Sam façade and part of how she really looks, how she really feels slips through. She seems to realise what she's said and rolls her eyes at herself, laughing quietly. "I just wanted you to know."

"Thank you." Brooke is sincere, and Sam knows it, but the blonde wants to make sure she does. That and she's found that she's willing to use any excuse. So she steps forward and, slightly awkwardly, wraps her arms around the other girl. It's risky territory, but Brooke can't help succumbing to the impulse. With Sam, she's found it's always dangerous, and sometimes it's just easier to allow the brief touches, rather than concentrate on not letting them happen in case she loses control.

Brooke closes her eyes as she feels Sam's hands gently rest themselves on her hips as she returns the hug. She can feel slender fingers twitch as they move along the bottom of her back until they rest in the middle of it. Sam's breathing has quickened again, but Brooke doesn't really notice, because her own has too. The reporter is lost in the smell and the feeling of Brooke. She wishes she'd allow herself to hug Brooke more. She wants time to stop, just for a little while, so she can hide in this moment for a small eternity. In Brooke's arms. But nothing can last forever, and she can feel the blonde pulling away, so she lets go and takes a step back, trying to at least look composed.

"But I already knew that." Brooke is telling her, and it's Sam's turn to look confused.

"You did? Why didn't you say anything when I asked you?" The 'deer in the headlights' look is not an attractive one on most. Today is the day that Sam's suspicions are confirmed. Everything looks good on Brooke.

"I-I was, um…." Brooke smiles nervously and releases a laugh that is reminiscent to a shaky exhale. _"Crap! Crap, crap, crap!" _"I was just…." _"Say something!" _"I was distracted?" _"Idiot! Now she's gonna ask you by what!"_ Sam jerks her head backwards, shocked by the statement.

"By what?"

"_Oh my god, I am so screwed! What am I going to tell her? 'Sorry, you were doing that thing with your tongue that sends me to a visual place that's illegal to talk about in some countries'? Think of something to get yourself out of this."_

"By um…." She's panicked. When Brooke panics, her eye flit around dangerously. They land on places they should not land. Her brain is never quite up to speed when she's panicked. "Your lips." Sam's jaw drops a few centimetres. She gives Brooke a look that screams that she can't believe what the cheerleader just said. Brooke can't believe it either. "No, I mean," She pauses long enough to give another nervous gasp of laughter. "Your-your lip gloss. It's so…" She waves a hand around in the air in front of her. "Shiny." A highly arched, dark eyebrow is the response she receives. Brooke folds her arms across her chest and smiles as widely as she dares without making it obviously fake-looking. There's a five second or so period that is tense and filled with Sam's confusion, but eventually…

"Oh. Thanks. It's like, plump or something." Sam buys it. And Brooke's heart starts to beat a little more normally. There's the distant sound of a ringing bell signalling the restart of classes. Brooke wants to find the alarm and kiss it. "I guess that's our cue. Lil will murder me if I make her brave Mr Ludwitz alone." Sam explains with a smile. "That is, if she's speaking to me."

"Did you guys have a fight?" Sam shrugs, not sure if she really wants to go into it. Brooke's eyes watch her, bore into her own, and unlock the chest Sam hides all her feelings and insecurities in.

"She, along with the rest of my suspicious posse seem to think our truce has more to do with me trying to knock you off your throne than it does with us trying to form some sort of friendship out of the mess our parents landed us in." Brooke's mouth opens and she mouths an understanding 'ah'. "I kinda yelled at them before I came here. I yelled at Sata-, I mean, Nicole." Brooke smiles, thankful that Sam is trying. "And Mary Cherry before I came in here too."

"What did they do?" It's strange how you can feel almost indifferent to someone and then suddenly grow protective of the same person in such a short time span.

"I suffer because of their mere existence on a daily basis. They didn't do or say anything I can't handle." Sam assures her with a smirk. Weak knees is something Brooke never had to deal with before.

"Yeah, they uh, they've been taking pointers from your friends by the sounds of it." Sam looks at her, questioningly. Brooke's nose crinkles in an apologetic grimace slash smile. "They're pretty sure you're brainwashing me." Sam throws her hands up in the air, exasperated.

"Would it be better for everyone if I just started hurling insults and food at you again? Or-or plotting to take down the cheerleading squad using only their curling irons and hair products?" Brooke laughs at the display, but shakes her head.

"No. I think I like you better when you're not doing those things." She bites her lower lip in a kind of bashful way as she says it and Sam finds herself calming right down into a melty puddle.

"Good. That's all that counts." There is another moment of staring. Sam uses checking the time as a distraction and once again insists that she should go. Brooke waves her away and is left alone again. Unsure whether or not she's giddy, even more in love than before, or desperately sad. She's decides what she feels is a mix of all three.

Brooke is quickly coming to understand that simply being Sam's friend, isn't enough. To be around her at school, and at home, and to have her thoughts constantly plagued by the other girl, is too much for her to handle. Sometimes all she can think about is how good it would feel just to hold her. To be able to hold her hand. To be allowed to kiss her. Her sanity, ability to reason with herself, and sense of what she should and shouldn't do are all slipping. And she knows it's just a matter of time before she breaks and does something irreversible. It won't be enough that Sam feels the same way she does, there are too many obstacles in their path to allow a smooth ride. That frightens her. Her father, Jane, people at school. Nicole would crucify her. Mary Cherry would wait and see what the general public reaction was before making her final decision. Brooke can tell herself that none of those things matter, that nothing anyone can do or say would make her feel different about Sam, but she can't deny that if they ever became anything more than friends, things would change. People would see them differently. People might hate them because of it.

And Brooke doesn't like to be hated.

Sighing, she turns back to the mirror and stares at herself. She takes a tube of her own lip gloss out of her handbag and applies it. Painting on her mask, hiding herself from the world again.

For now.


	10. Mistakes

**Title:** Mistakes

**Rating:** PG

**Disclaimer: **Ryan Murphy created them. I just like to play with the moulds.

**A/N: **Part 10 in my "Balance" series. If there's anyone that wants a refresh of earlier chapters, i post them all over on my LJ site. This has been a while in the making. I kind of hit a wall (writing a fic that's supposed to be centred mostly around 'fun' and not angst was way more difficult that i thought it would be ;D), then got distracted by "The Snowball Effect", but i finally managed to finish it.

**A/N2:** Huge thanks to Quatorz. You rock!!

**Summary:** Everyone has to endure the results of the ones they make.

* * *

Mistakes

There are times in everyone's lives when they have to own up and admit they made a mistake. Sometimes the consequences are bad. Often, in fact. Rarely do mistakes create a situation that is pleasurable to be in. For example, when choosing Lotto numbers, you could mistakenly list 13 as one of your usual numbers, when actually it's 31 and low and behold your numbers are called that week with one exception. 13 in place of your usual 31. That is a good mistake.

Sadly, more often than not mistakes have bad results. Accidentally forgetting to blow out a candle and the curtains catch on fire. Mistakenly yelling at and waving down someone in the street, only to realise it isn't the person you thought it was. Forgetting to remove an item from the staircase, placed there so you would remember to take it with you, and subsequently tripping on it, breaking a vital bone. These are bad mistakes.

Brooke has come to fully understand the dire and unpleasant ramifications one small, silly mistake can have. The sleepless nights, the tension, the constant paranoia.

And all because she'd been distracted. Her concentration had faltered, and in concurrence so had her judgement. At that crucial moment, she'd been unable to discern where the line between what was a good idea and what was a bad idea lay. And had slipped and stumbled right across it.

Day One

It had started innocently enough. They had all sat down for the usual family dinner, talked about the usual monotonous every day events and then had been asked to clean up dishes. They'd set to work on them in silence, Brooke washing, Sam drying. Companionable quiet was always easy with Sam, there was no stress to fill the awkward air between them, because it was rarely awkward.

Sam was standing close to her. So close their elbows and arms brushed together as Brooke passed the rinsed plates and cutlery towards the brunette. It was distracting. Incredibly so. She'd already dropped a plate back into the water and had to claim it had been slippy. Sam, oblivious as usual, has just smiled and accepted the cover.

It was constantly growing more and more dangerous being around Sam. The side of Brooke she tried so hard to keep hidden, keep buried, always seemed to struggle treacherously closer to the surface whenever she was around her. Her mind becomes clouded, she does things she knows she isn't supposed to do. Place a hand at the small of Sam's back as she scoots around her. Gaze a little too long at her profile when Sam isn't looking. Entertain thoughts and fantasies she knows she should be trying to block out of her mind at all times. She does things, silly things, in an attempt to make Sam smile or laugh. To see the fire.

Which was exactly what led her to that moment, the moment that made her trip across that line. That saw her hands lift a plate out of the sink and, in one swift motion, hurl the water collected on it to the side of her.

"Brooke!!" Sam yelped, outraged. Her hands were held out away from her body, fingers splayed and separated, as she stared down at her soaking wet shirt. Brooke's insides were bouncing, like someone had slipped Mexican jumping beans into her blood. A looming sense of dread settled over her like a black cloud as Sam's eyes lifted from her shirt, which Brooke noted with a rush of heat ,was rapidly growing see-through, and met hazel. But Brooke clung to the silver lining as she rode it, waiting for Sam to make a move.

And Sam did.

The remainder of the dishes were left soapy in the sink, the dishtowel lay forgotten on the floor, as thunderous footsteps and screamed, grinned threats echoed throughout the house and parents' warnings went unheard.

Day Two

She'd all but forgotten it the next day. It didn't even enter her mind until they were at school and Nicole pointed out that Brooke was being stared at.

"What?" Brooke asked, blinking as if being drawn out of a trance, and swivelling her head around to find dark eyes staring at her. Her heart shot into her throat and for a second she couldn't do anything. Breathe, move, not even twitch her eyes away. She had instantly chastised herself, silently yelling for her brain to kick start once more. Drooling over Sam in school was a definite no-no. The fact that Sam was staring imaginary daggers at her also helped her snap out of it.

"What did you do? Bury her broomstick? She looks ready to charge." Nicole's eyes narrowed as she looked at the brunette, her own steeling gaze boring into Sam's, though she was looked extremely unaware. "Or eat you." A sudden burst of nervous laughter was expelled from Brooke's lungs. It was almost hysterical as her eyes shot away from Sam and to her spiky-haired companion. She managed to calm herself down relatively quickly.

"Broomstick." Brooke said, as if that explained everything. Her forehead creased a little in a desperate frown. "That was funny." Her eyes were drawn back to Sam and away from Nicole's suspicious, accusing glare. "I have no idea why she's looking at me like that. I haven't-" Click. "Oh." Sam smirked and Brooke had to wonder whether she'd read Brooke's lips or could simply read her mind. She hoped she couldn't do the latter. Either way, she had a really bad feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. And she knew it was all her fault. Her eyes widened comically in alarm and Sam's smirk turned into a laugh. "I have to go." Brooke blurted out, standing up in such a rush she almost knocked her chair over.

"Brookie-" Nicole started to protest, waving her nail file in the air. But Brooke wasn't listening, she made a beeline for the cafeteria entrance and disappeared. Nicole watched, eyebrows touching because her frown was so deep, as Sam leaned towards the center of her own table, said something to her group of nobodies and rose herself. Following Brooke out of the room.

Brooke power walked to the first destination that popped into her head. Though upon arriving there, she realised The Novak probably wasn't the best hiding place. Especially when Sam waltz in about two seconds after she did, prohibiting the blonde from being able to hide. Brooke stared at her, as the brunette nonchalantly sauntered towards her. That was when Brooke noticed the cup in her hand.

"What's that?" Brooke asked, a little snappish due to the nerves. A dark eyebrow arched in deep, not too obvious, amusement.

"Hello to you too, Princess."

"Is there any way you would believe me if I said that soaking you last night was an accident?"

"Not a chance." Sam assured her, before leaping atop the plush round sofa in the center of The Novak and running across it, landing in front of Brooke before the blonde had time to react. She grabbed a fistful of the front of the cheerleaders shirt, pulling their bodies close together. Brooke felt Sam hesitate for a second, as if taking the moment to savour the closeness or to recover from it, and then she felt the shirt being pulled away completely from the front of her body. The ice was cold, as ice usually is, and the cubes ran along her chest in freezing, slippery lines. Her breath hitched repeatedly until she finally let out a squeal. They sat, soaking through her shirt, because Nicole had demanded she tuck it in, as that was apparently the way to wear shirts this week. So they were caught there and that was another to add to the list of reasons why she despised her popularity lately.

Eyes screwed closed, she only felt Sam move and by then it was too late, and the rest of the ice cubes were being poured down the back of her shirt and Brooke's shrieks were louder, more outraged. Her eyes snapped open and she glared at Sam before the cold got too much and she began hopping around the room.

"Oops." Sam dared to say. The look they shared then was similar to so many others they had shared previously. Usually during some form of fight, after hurtful words had been hurled like grenades. Except this time, the malice and threat within it was different. Changed.

"You're dead, McPherson." Brooke managed to spit out through grated teeth, her eyes burning as she un-tucked her shirt and let the ice cubes fall to the floor.

"Bring it on, B." Sam smirked dangerously and, Brooke tried not to notice, seductively, backing out of the room.

The war was on.

Day Three

It only progressed further from there. Brooke spent the rest of the previous day and most of the following morning and afternoon trying to think of a way to get Sam back. She came up with the most extravagant ideas, the only downfalls of which were the inability to actually execute them without the involvement of the fire department or a S.W.A.T team.

So she had resorted to water balloons and skulking in the bushes. In all honesty, she felt like some sort of perverted stalker obsessed with small water filled rubber sacks, laying in wait to lure high school students to their drenched doom.

And she didn't have to wait long.

Sam's faithful beetle stuttered into the driveway and she shut off the engine. Or it stalled. Brooke could never be sure. The brunette twisted her body so her knees were in the seat and reached into the back for her bag and various books. Her shirt rose slightly as she stretched, exposing the smooth, silky-looking skin of her back. And totally distracting Brooke for the moment. Later she would be appalled and furious with herself, but until then, she was trying not to whimper or allow the drool to fall from her mouth and soak into her jeans.

She had it bad. And depending on her mood, she either revelled in that fact, or hated herself because she was too weak to fight it. Other times, most times, she didn't want to fight it. She wanted the world to go away so she could stare at Sam unabashed and tell her how beautiful she thought she was.

Instead of admiring from afar, hiding in bushes.

"_Snap out of it."_ She chided, coming back down to Earth as Sam readjusted her position and slipped out of the car. She never even saw it coming. One minute she was getting ready to blink, the next a barrage of water balloons was raining down upon her. She screamed. Shocked by the sudden coldness, her body tensed and she clamped her eyes shut. They soon snapped open though, instantly finding Brooke in her hiding place.

Brooke felt her heart hammer in her chest when their eyes met. Fear? Exhilaration? Lust? Probably a seriously unstable combination of all three. The water was seeping into Sam's t-shirt, making it cling to her body. Brooke absently gnawed on her lower lip, beginning to see a pattern in her attacks.

"Brooke." Sam said through clenched teeth, eyes burning just like the cheerleader had hoped. "You are going to be so sorry you didn't just let this drop." Brooke managed to cling to her sanity and, only by default, her composure and stood, smirking. Well aware she was egging Sam on.

She wasn't exactly sure what her problem was. Way she enjoyed this playful enraging so much. She didn't really care either. She just knew it was fun, that it made her feel alive, that it made her feel weirdly close to Sam. Because no one could get a rise out of her like Brooke could.

"Bring it on, Sammie." Brooke tilted her eyes to the side, flashing the wet brunette a challenging, yet what she hoped was a slightly smouldering look, and grinned inwardly as she saw Sam swallow, any retort being washed away.

Sometimes she felt bad. Knowing how Sam felt, but still teasing her in such ways. She seemed to be powerless against the need though, couldn't help it. Most of her didn't want to and the rest couldn't be bothered fighting. It felt good bantering with Sam, pushing her to the limit. It always had. Brooke had done and said some pretty awful things in order to get that rise out of Sam, all because there didn't seem to be any other safe way to do it. And it felt good.

Too good.

Day Four

Sleep had remained elusive for the better part of the last four hours and Brooke had waved goodbye to infuriated on her way to pissed-dom. She'd tried listening to soft, quiet music. She'd drank warm milk and almost gagged. She'd felt like an idiot while wiggling her toes and, as a last resort, had even tried counting sheep. Which she was pretty sure had never worked in the history of the world, which had then made her consider for a solid half hour how the method had even come about, unable to shut her brain off.

And now finally, she was sleeping. On her stomach, the side of her face pressed into the pillow, obscuring it from view. The fingers on her right arm were twitching. She was dreaming. The staring role going to the person it had been going to for months now, and she smiled in her slumber like she always did. This was the only time, whether she remembered the next morning or not, that she got to be with Sam without the worries and insecurities that plagued her waking moments with the brunette. The only time her consciousness would let go enough to allow her to fully imagine what a life in which they could be together would be like.

It was nice while the dreams lasted, but she wasn't always the better for them in the morning.

She was out in the sunshine walking hand in hand with Sam when she heard a curious clicking noise. She turned her head and the dream suddenly faded. Her eyes blinked open and she found herself back in her room, but Sam was still with her. She groggily wondered if she were still dreaming and the scenery had just changed to better aid the unconscious thoughts of a hormonal teen.

"Sam?" She questioned throatily, her hand reaching out automatically for the pajama-clad reporter. When Sam eyed her hand with confusion and suspicion, her brain finally sped up enough for her to realize she was no longer dreaming and she yanked her hand back quickly. "What are you doing?" Her heart was suddenly hammering in her chest. Sam didn't exactly make a habit out of sneaking into her room in the middle of the night and Brooke instantly, though hopelessly, wondered if she'd finally had enough and had come to confess her undying love.

"_In your dreams, McQueen."_ Brooke thought, wryly. She blinked slowly, trying to get her eyes to focus, and then found Sam smirking at her. And then saw the cup in Sam's hand.

And then it was far to late for any kind of reaction.

The ice cold water soaked into Brooke's hair. Ran down her face and neck, seeped into her tank top and eventually pooled beneath her in a freezing, wet puddle.

"Just needed some water." The smirk widened and then Sam had disappeared back into the darkness. Leaving Brooke to sit and blink stupidly after her. And change her sheets.

Day Five

She was a mess. A complete nervous wreck. And it was all Sam's fault. Sure, she may have started the whole thing, but Sam could have been the bigger person. She could have let it go.

"_Stubborn ass."_ Brooke thought twitchily, rubbing at her eyes. After stripping her bed and putting new sheets on, she'd lain awake for hours. Eyes wide and as jittery like a spooked owl, waiting for Sam to come back and soak her again. _"She's going to kill me. She's actually going to be the death of me."_ She knew that there was a simple solution to all of this, a way she could go back to actually sleeping and not fearing for her dryness. She could give in. She could call a truce and it would all be over.

But that would mean that Sam would win, and she knew the other girl would hold that over her head forever.

"_I hate it when she gloats."_ Brooke frowned, annoyed. _"She gets all glowy and smirks like her face is stuck that way, like she can't look at me without doing it. Then she acts like she isn't doing anything at all and it makes me want to grab her by her stupid, scrawny, perfect neck and strangle her."_ The 'P' word popped into her head without prompt and it infuriated her. Her eyes rolled wildly and she let her head fall to her desk.

"McQueen!" Her back snapped straight and she found her chemistry teacher staring at her with concern. "Are you unwell? Has your absentee lab partner attempted to poison you over breakfast by dissolving an overdose of painkillers into your milk?" Her eyes stared from Brooke to the rest of the class, glaring at them individually. "I knew you juvenile delinquents would put my hard taught lessons to inexcusable use!" Bobbi Glass barked at them.

"No, Miss Glass." Brooke stopped her before the rampaging teacher had chance to shove a Bunsen burner somewhere it most certainly didn't belong. "There was no…" And now she couldn't believe she was speaking such insane words. "Attempted poisoning that I'm aware of." Why was it that she and the people that surrounded her seemed to put in situations that required them to say the most outlandish things? "I just didn't get a lot of sleep."

"How come, Brooke?" Brooke was so startled by the voice she almost fell off her stool. Her head snapped around to find Sam sitting right beside her, as if having appeared out of thin air. Her eyes full of the mischief and gloating that lately made Brooke want to scream with frustration. She hated that Sam thought she was winning. Even as exhausted, paranoid, and worn out as she was, she wouldn't let that happen. It was simply not an option, and so the logical next step she found with relative ease.

She just had to up the ante.

********************

It was a weird sensation, she'd found. Actively plotting against someone you had feelings for. In a way, it helped her forget that. The thing constantly on her mind whenever Sam was around, even when she wasn't. Plotting allowed her brain a change of pace from her usual thoughts. Then on the flip side, she was still thinking about her. Constantly. And she wasn't doing this to make Sam hate her, make her annoyed. She was doing it to get the other girl riled up, so Sam would give off that dangerous, 'you'll be sorry' air that made Brooke feel so alive when she felt it. It made her heart race, having Sam's eyes rake over her like that. She wondered what Sam thought when she threw those looks her way. Was she thinking 'you'll be sorry' or was it more 'I'm so hot for you, I'm using this as an excuse to get a passionate reaction out of you, but I hope you don't realise that'. Brooke knew which one she wanted it to be and she had to force that thought away every time it entered her head, repeating her 'Plotting, plotting, plotting' mantra to drown it out.

"Okay, mongrels. Beakers and test tubes to the sink for cleaning!" Glass snapped, slamming a ruler down onto Lily's desk and making the petite Latina almost jump out of her goggles. Brooke watched as Sam threw her an empathetic look and stood up.

"I can grab those." Brooke offered helpfully, grabbing both beakers between the fingers of her right hand and both test tubes with those of her left. Sam smiled at her. That genuine, mind blowing smile of hers, and Brooke almost felt bad.

Almost.

Brooke led the way towards one of the sinks that lined one side of the room and rather more awkwardly than Sam thought necessary, deposited the equipment into it.

"You're so inept, Brooke!" Sam laughed, playfully pushing the blonde out of the way. "I'll do it. Go sit down."

"I want to help." The blonde protested, her eyes flaring as Sam's hand reached for the hose on the sink. Sam was still laughing when she flipped the tap on and squeezed the trigger. When the water sprayed out at an unnatural angle, completely soaking the bottom of her shirt and the front of her khaki pants, her open-mouthed expression froze. A shocked, half strangled 'Oh!' was the only thing that escaped.

In slow motion, Brooke saw Sam's head tilt down to take in the damage. Saw the switch in expression, however minute, when she realised she looked as though she'd just had a very unfortunate accident. And suddenly had a very bone chilling thought.

"_I have nowhere to run."_ Sam slowly turned to face her, dropping the hose into the sink. _"I plotted! Why didn't I think of an escape plan?!"_ The rest of the class was deathly silent and still as every pair of eyes in the room watched the events unfold. Every one of them had seen some part of the great 'Sam VS Brooke' war, and wondered if this wasn't going to spark a round two.

"Sam-"

"Brooke, the sink seems to have exploded on me." Sam explained, slowly. Every word dripping with danger. It made Brooke's insides bubble. "You keep extra clothes in your locker, right? Can I borrow some pants?" Sam was advancing on her, forcing Brooke to back her way across the classroom, extremely aware of everyone watching.

"I didn't…" Hazel eyes flitted nervously around the room. _"Oh my god. __**Why**__ do you keep doing this? You keep pushing her buttons, and then freak out when she tries to get you back! Just let it die next time!" _She cleared her throat. "I didn't bring anything today." Sam's smile was predatory.

"I think you're confused." And it was with a squeak that Brooke turned and bolted out of the room. Sam watched her go, then addressed the class with raised eyebrow. Everyone but Lily's averted their eyes embarrassedly. Sam glanced at her, and then disappeared through the door, breaking into a run as soon as her feet hit the hallway.

Day Six

The arsenal of water pistols Harrison had was astounding. She had stared in slack-jawed awe. He'd shrugged it off with a cute half smile, explaining that in war, a wide array of weapons was essential. She'd laughed and asked him to show her his best. Which he had done. Painstakingly detailing the pros and cons of each one, much to Sam's amusement.

"You know, you're kind of a goof Harrison." Sam teased him as he gave her the amount of yards the 'Skin Stripper 350' could shoot. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled, a little hesitantly.

"But a cute goof, right?" She grinned widely and let out a laugh, but managed a nod.

"Definitely the cutest guy I know." He pursed his lips and tilted his head to face her.

"Date material?" He smiled widely in the hopes of conveying a joking manner, but Sam had been able to see right through him since the moment they met. "Because I've kind of been worrying lately that people have forgotten that I'm, you know, not female." Sam's smile faltered minutely, but thankfully he didn't notice. She'd been sensing this approaching for a while. He'd been making comments, offering cute but awkward things like carrying her books to chem. class. And Sam had been befuddled and not known how to respond other than by laughing it off and shoving him in the shoulder. Which she only now realised hadn't helped at all. She took a breath to settle herself, deciding it was now or never. She couldn't go on allowing him to have false hope when there really wasn't a chance in any of the 9 levels of hell that she'd be dating him any time soon. Not when she was so hopelessly, grudgingly, pathetically smitten with someone else. Even if there was no chance with that person.

"Harrison," And his smile faded, instantly recognising her tone. "You're-"

"A great guy, yeah, I know." His lips twitched upwards, but he sighed and turned away from her. "I get told a lot." She frowned, torn at the thought of hurting him but seeing no way around it anymore.

"You **are**, Harrison. You just… you haven't found the right girl yet." He turned back to her and she knew he would see the 'I'm not her' she was trying to word differently in her eyes. His expression told her that he did, but he wasn't angry. Just disheartened, and she knew him well enough to know he could recover from that. "But you will." She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "Your smile and big-ass ears are way too cute for you not to." And he laughed at that, the tension dropping away and allowing them to be friends again.

"What do you need water pistols for anyway?" He finally had the presence of mind to ask her. She smirked at him. The kind of smirk that made him realise he maybe didn't want to know. "You know? Never mind. Just take what you want and don't tell anyone you were here." She laughed at him and went back to perusing his wares.

********************

"Brooke honey, can you take out the trash?" Jane's disembodied voice called from another room, jostling Brooke from her stupor. She'd been standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring out of the window completely lost in her thoughts. Thoughts that made her blush once she realised what had happened and who exactly was addressing her.

"Sure, Jane." She called back, her cheeks burning and feeling eternally grateful she wasn't in the room with her. She figured Jane might not appreciate Brooke mentally undressing her daughter and then proceeding to do all manner of things to her. Brooke shook her head as if to clear it. _"You are a bad, bad person Brooke McQueen."_ She hauled the full garbage bag out of the can and twilled it, then twisted a knot into it. She felt that persistent black cloud begin to settle over her again. _"You have no right to think about her that way. If you could stop being a coward for two seconds and tell her how you feel, then sure, fantasise all you want. Hell, you'd be able to act them out!" _Admonishing herself in such a way had become a regular occurrence. It didn't seem to actually do any good, she still had the thoughts, but it made her feel better, feel guilty - like she should. For about 5 minutes. _"Get off your damn pedestal."_ She grumbled, hauling the bag out through the kitchen doors. She seemed to spend a lot of the time frustrated with herself lately. _"And who's fault is that?" _

"Drop the bag or die, McQueen!" She jumped at the unexpected voice, spinning around with a quiet gasp. And the bag slipped from her hand anyway. Sam was standing in the sunlight, clad in denim jeans that were torn at the knees and a grey tank top, one Brooke could distinctly remember her wearing previously. She wondered if her heart as raced so wildly then too. Sam was also wearing something around her head, and it was only when she let her head loll backwards a little to regard Brooke cockily that she realised it was a blue and red striped tie. And she'd tied it around her head in the style of Sylvester Stallone's 'Rambo'.

She was suddenly, tremendously aware of how amazing Sam was. How no one else came close to making her laugh, making her cry, making her feel as alive as the other girl did.

Even when she was about to be soaked. Which Brooke realised was the case about five seconds before it happened.

"You gave up too easy." Sam managed to say before her fingers squeezed the triggers of both water guns she held. She had picked them for range and power. In those two categories, Harrison has assured her, they excelled. And now she witnessed that first hand. The massive sprays of water closed the gap between them with ease, but allowed Sam to keep a safe distance. Not that Brooke moved, she just stood rooted to the spot in what Sam assumed was shock. But inside, Brooke was to busy feeling everything except the shock to do anything.

The bubbling laughter threatening to escape, every nerve ending in her body tingling its way to inferno. How amazing it made her feel to see Sam smile. How her hair was sticking, soaked, to her neck. Suddenly, the switch was flipped.

"We'll see about that." And she bolted. Sam's eyes widened and she began hastily backing away, almost tripping in the process. She made it all the way to the front of the house, onto the lawn, before Brooke made a dive for it. She missed Sam's ankle by millimetres and lay, face down against the grass, listening to the brunette's laughter as it faded. Grass in her mouth and a smile on her lips.

Day Seven

After an entire week, it's come down to this. They've tied for the number of pranks, but Brooke thinks she is leading in the poll for number of sleepless nights. They stand opposite one another, poised on a precipice, waiting for one of them to fall first so the other could follow her directions. Sam's maniacal grin is driving her crazy, making her hands repeatedly twitch and flex in false starts. They're sweating, actually sweating. And Sam doesn't seem to be worried at all.

"_If she isn't worried, why hasn't she made a move yet? Instead of standing there, looking at me like that." _Brooke stares hard the brunette. _"Like she wants to… do unmentionable things to me."_

"You're looking pensive, Princess." Sam taunts her. "Regretting starting this whole thing?"

"Determined to finish it." She shoots back, more on the ball than she thought. And then Sam cocks an eyebrow and her grin turns into a full on smirk. Brooke feels like she's too hot for her skin. She wonders if Sam knows what she's doing. If she suspects the feelings she has for Brooke are reciprocated. _"She'd have confronted me by now. But why does she act like this then? Is it a 'take what you can get' thing? She can't really have me, so she'll settle for flirting and teasing because she can apparently get away with that without me slapping her?"_

"Strong words for someone who's spent most of the week peeing her pants." The brunette quips, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Don't flatter yourself, Spam." Brooke bares her teeth with a smirk of her own. "You don't scare me." _"You terrify me."_ She adds, silently.

"Then why haven't you moved yet?"

"Why haven't you?" Brooke retorts and Sam can't help but laugh at the childishness of the conversation, if you could call it that.

"We both know how this is going to end, Brooke. With me victorious as always and you sporting the soaked seraph look." Brooke feels her insides melt a little at the words, as they always did when Sam's mask slipped. It wasn't every day she was surreptitiously called an angel though. "So why don't you just put the bucket down?"

"Why don't you put your bucket down?" There is a beat of silence as they regard each other.

"I don't want to be out here all night." Brooke smiles widely, smugly.

"So stop being such a pansy and take action Sam." And then, in a moment of either great stupidly, incredible cruelty, or fiendish genius, Brooke asks, "Why don't you **finally** make your move?" Brooke could pin point the exact moment the shock of the double-entendre of her words hit home. Sam's entire body seemed to slacken and her tongue rolled out of its position in her cheek, almost lolling out of her mouth. The indecision flows across her face, unguarded due to the shock of Brooke's comment. To take the words at face value? Or to believe the inner meaning was actually there?

Brooke, made suddenly nervous by Sam's lack of the usual verbal reaction, takes the decision away from her. In one felled swoop, she swings her arms backwards and then throws them forward with unnecessary force, but it allows her to hit her mark. Sam doesn't even have time to turn or lift her arms up in defence, not that it would have helped much. The bucket was full to the brim and it drenches her accordingly. As always, Brooke feels the stirrings of panic as Sam's brain registers what she's done and allows that dangerous, feral gleam to twinkle in her eyes. And then the euphoric, addictive adrenaline kicks in. And the jumping beans are back in her blood, apparently at it like rabbits and multiplying by the second. Every single one of Sam's teeth appear in one of the wide grins that makes Brooke go weak at the knees, and she can almost feel the molecules making up the air dive for cover from the huge stream of water that is careening towards her. She does have time to shut her eyes and throw her hands in front of her face, and no, it doesn't help one bit. Blinded for those few seconds, she only hears Sam's laughter bubbling up from the other girl, and the loud footfalls of her sneakers on the pool tile. She gets her eyes open in time to see Sam running towards her, not away. And it is a split second later that she realises what the brunette is about to do, but by that time, Sam had already collided with her.

The reporter wraps her arms around Brooke's waist and lets the momentum carry them both backwards, into the pool. Sam's wild laughter is lost to the watery depths as they crash through the calm liquid and sink heavily towards the bottom. The chlorine burns her nose, but she doesn't care because she's laughing too. Even beneath the water, forming loud bubbles instead of sound. She feels Sam's hands let go of her, the fingers of her left hand nonchalantly slipping across her stomach as she swims away and to Brooke's side in a move that might have gone unnoticed if Brooke hadn't, as usual, been so hyper aware of Sam. It sends a thrill through the blonde that she instantly chastises herself for, but secretly revels in. And it is that part of her that basks in that feeling that allows her own hand to reach out and grab Sam's as the contact between them is lost, desperate to keep it. Sam pushes off the bottom of the pool with her feet and propels herself upwards, dragging Brooke along and enclosing her hand in both of her own. Brooke doesn't think she's ever smiled this much under water before.

They brake the surface taking in large gulps of air. Sam's laughter returns, stunning Brooke into silence.

"_She's so__… beautiful."_ She sighs, letting her eyes linger longer than could be considered necessary. Wet hair stuck to her face, hanging in front of her eyes, t-shirt clinging in all the right places and water running off of her face. There is nothing about Sam that is less than perfect. And it takes Brooke's breath away every time.

So much so, she can't actually get out any of the words she so wishes she could say. At least, in her weak moments that was what she likes to blame it on.

And then Sam notices she's staring. And is was a long pause in which they just looked at each other. Sam's eyes drop infinitesimally, and it alerts Brooke to the fact that she is gnawing nervously on her lower lip. She lets it go. And their eyes lock.

Sam is still holding onto her hand, now only with one of her own choosing to use the other to help her tread water. But she's made no effort to release her hold and Brooke can't summon the strength to either. She's so tired of pushing through immovable objects, she wants to be able to just leave them where they are and adjust.

In that infinite span of time, Brooke didn't know which 'mistake' she wanted to make more. To let her fear rule over her heart and carry her away from Sam wasn't the most appealing idea, but it seemed like the safest. Or she could make the one that could end disastrously and allow herself to do what she really wanted. She could take the bullet and force Sam back against the poolside, tangle her fingers in wet hair and crush their lips together.

But she doesn't know what the outcome of either mistake will be. So she paints on a smile, and lets go of Sam's hand. Taking the loss like a kick to the chest. She swims backwards away from her. Away from what she wants to do and a place she feels safe, like herself. And towards one where she is sure of nothing, and all she knows is that she wants to be with Sam. But she's afraid.

And being afraid could be Brooke's biggest mistake of all.


	11. Confrontation

**Rating:** G

**Disclaimer: **Ryan Murphy created them. I just like playing with the moulds.

**A/N:** Huge thanks to Quatorz. =) Couldn't have gotten this finished without you!

**A/N 2**: Bonus points for anyone who catches the 'Buffy' reference. ;)

**Summary:** Sam knows exactly what her perfect world would be like. Now if only reality would stop getting in the way…

* * *

Everyone has their idea of a perfect world. From grand dreams of a world without war, to materialistic fanciful dreams of a world in which one is allowed to shop until one drops, and everything in between. A world without shrimp? One in which everything is easy and takes no effort at all? What about one where everything you wish for, everything you long for is reachable? Could come true just by the idea of it existing?

If Sam lets herself, she can envision her 'perfect' world. It's a place where she doesn't have to hide from her family and friends, a place where she isn't terrified ninety percent of the time of doing something that will out her before she's ready to do it herself. Sometimes, a lot of the time, she slips. The hold she has on that fearful part of herself loosens with a single smile from Brooke and before she knows what's happened, she's tumbling head first down bank that's lush with her desires. She can't stop herself from reaching out to touch Brooke, to say things that hint at her feelings, but don't completely give them away. Sam sees it as a safe way of working out some of her inner frustrations. It's either that or she does something drastic. Lock herself in her room for weeks without eating, throw herself off a bridge, explode. Take your pick, she's considered all of them. And it's strange, because the thing that stops her balance of sanity from tipping and allowing her to follow through with any of those impulses, is the same one that caused her to consider them in the first place.

Brooke. The other girl, completely unknowingly, has some kind of control over Sam. She can make Sam do things without even asking. Make's Sam opinion of something change on the flick of a coin, something the reporter hates at times, because her opinions had always meant a lot to her. She was very sure of them, very passionate about some. Then Brooke would swan in, perfect, and with a flick of her hair and a blink of eyes Sam dreamt about on a regular basis, could suggest that maybe Sam's opinion of something wasn't necessarily the correct one. And where Sam would have previously rolled her eyes, barked a snarky remark and stuck to her guns, she now considered the blonde's words. In Sam's eyes, she might as well have rolled over like an ultra submissive pooch who was desperately trying to entice its owner into rubbing its stomach by doing exactly the kind of thing it knew she would like. She didn't even agree with Brooke half of the time, but found herself outwardly agreeing with whatever she said so that the conversation wouldn't come to a dramatic, potentially explosive stop. It was like she'd done a complete one-eighty. She could, however vaguely now, love-clouded as her mind was, remember a time she'd disagreed with Brooke on every subject just for the heck of it. Purely to drive the blonde up the wall. In more cheerful moments, those memories made her smile. In more cheerful moments, Sam could find humour in the whole situation. How she'd acted just to get a rise out of Brooke, how she still did that sometimes, how she had fallen for Brooke out of all of the people in the entire world.

But the thoughts inevitably turned dark. She'd lost count of the afternoons and evenings she'd spent curled up on her bed, wishing everything would just stop. That the world would end and she'd finally have some peace. That she had the strength and the willpower to grasp the simple truth that nothing was ever going to happen with Brooke and she could move on. But the part of her that didn't want to move on wouldn't allow her to. Because as twisted and perverse as it was, that part of herself enjoyed the tortured closeness, those little moments that drove her to the brink of insanity afterwards as she allowed herself to dwell on fact that she wanted so much for them to have meant more to Brooke. Because when Brooke smiled at her, touched her arm or back in passing, laughed at something she said or came to Sam with a problem she felt she couldn't talk to anyone else about, it meant the more to her than words could express.

Sam's perfect world, when she lets herself see it, is as centred around Brooke as the world she inhabits now has always been. From the beginning, she'd been obsessed. But in her perfect world, they're more than friends, they're the kind of people that need to be together to survive. Like the need to breathe. In Sam's perfect world, the need isn't one-sided.

But she's coped. She's struggled through life up until this point and she'll continue to do so, because she doesn't know what else to do. It's not like she can pack her bags and leave, splitting up the family is not an option anymore, all she can do is grit her teeth and bare it.

She's written about it a lot. Her feelings, her hopes, the daydreams she has when her mind wanders. Brooke coming to her and admitting she feels the same, them finding on-campus couples lodging at the college they were attending together. She'd even had then picking out bed sheets. Not all of them were happy though, in fact the majority she'd never read over again for fear of spiralling into a dangerous depression. They'd started out as long, eloquent entries that divulge her inner most desires, but if one was to read the notebook into which she'd poured her heart, they'd see the entries became less eloquent with time. She rambled more, unable to find the words for what she was feeling. Until finally, she'd been driven to the point she was at now.

Sitting cross-legged at the head of her bed, absently doodling various artsy incarnations of 'Sam heart's Brooke' all over the inside cover.

"_I cannot believe my writing abilities have come to this." _She tilts her head to the side, eyes scanning her work. There is very little space left on the cover. _"And I'm kind of creeped out by how stalkerish this is." _She rolls her eyes at herself, tapping her pen repeatedly on the book with her left hand, irritated. _"It's like a compulsion. I can't not be obsessed." _Her eyes glaze over as she loses herself in the thought, staring blindly at the wall across from her. _"I have Brooke OCD. Must think about her 95% of the time, otherwise the world will end or something equally dramatic." _Her smirk is rueful. _"Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. I'd probably be less miserable and pathetically drawn to and infatuated by her if I were dead. Depending on the after effects of said death, of course. Should that be the end of it, I think I'd probably welcome the worms. But should every atheist out there be proved wrong by a literal act of God and I find myself in some cloud-cushioned paradise… well, then I'd probably spend eternity pining over her in the exact same way."_ She isn't sure she likes that last thought too much. It's strange, she's spent so much time now intently focused on Brooke, and so much of her energy has, in turn, been spent trying to stop herself from doing that, that the thought of being taken away from the place she so often lost herself in scares her a little. It's as though she wouldn't know what to do if she couldn't obsess over Brooke anymore, couldn't be around her while constantly telling herself that she shouldn't be anywhere near her, neither of which would actually be a big deal if she were dead. She would either not know she couldn't do any of them, or she'd obsess even in whatever afterlife awaited. _"How in the hell did I turn this into some sort of religious debate? Seriously, what is wrong with me? Why can't I be like any other normal teenager and just lock myself away and cry about it for a week until I get over it?"_ Sam strongly suspects that the reason she can't do that is because what she feels isn't typical of a normal teenager. It isn't every day the average one fell in love, _"Because let's face it, this is no mere case of the '__**Like**__ like's.", _with the person that was slated to become their stepsibling in the near future. Add that to the fact that both people involved are distinctly female, and you have a situation that cannot rank anywhere near average on the 'How normal are you?' scale. _"Not that I've ever been too normal." _Sam admits, eyes still fixed unmoving on the wall. _"Can't recall any other reports of kindergarteners that systematically booby trapped their lunchbox to stop the culprit who'd been stealing various food products out of different ones for a week. Or anyone who would be proud of that ten years on."_ She smiles at herself and shakes her head, finally looking away from the wall and back down to her notebook. _"So what does a less-than-normal teenager do about a problem that would give the Pope a coronary?"_ And like every time she'd posed the question to herself, the girl who usually had an answer for everything is speechless.

"Deep in thought there, Sampson?" The thoroughly unexpected voice makes Sam's entire body twitch and jump violently, shocking her heart into hammering inside her chest. Her eyes dart painfully quickly to the doorway, where she finds Harrison smiling at her and leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his chest. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. I would have knocked, but the door was open. I just assumed you'd see me." As the sound of her heart pounding in her ears quietens, she realises how she must have looked and chuckles.

"I know for a fact you get a thrill from scaring the pants off of people, so forgive me if I don't believe you for a second." Harrison's grin widens and he drops his head a little, nodding in a way that tells Sam not believing him is probably the right way to go. He pushes himself off of the doorframe and walks into the room. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" Considering their best friends status, Harrison doesn't choose to inhabit the Palace all that often. Sam has a sneaky suspicion it has something to do with Brooke and being in close quarters with her, but she's never outright asked him.

"Well, I was at home, doing nothing and I saw you sitting here all alone." Sam cocks an eyebrow, lips pursing amusedly.

"You know, I really don't know what to think about the fact that you can see right into both mine and Brooke's bedrooms. And that you apparently take advantage of that." Harrison rolls his eyes but has the decency to blush a little. When he reaches the foot of the bed, the notebook in Sam's hands suddenly feels like gravity has been reversed on it, forcing it down, making it heavy in her hands. With a sharp intake of breath she hopes he doesn't hear, she closes the book as slowly as she can manage so as not to draw attention to it.

"Strictly under dire circumstances. For example, had I not glanced over here while passing by my own window, I'd have never seen lonely little you and wouldn't have been able to come to your rescue."

"My hero." Sam laughs as he sits on the edge of the bed, twisting his upper body backwards to look at her. She feels her palms begin to perspire as his eyes leave her face and flit to the book in her hands.

"What's that?" Brown eyes dart around the room, as if hoping he was asking about something else in the room, but with a bite of her lip, Sam realises there isn't really any avoiding the question. So she thinks quick.

"Just some stupid thing I've been having trouble with. It's nothing." And she tosses the book on the bedside table, hoping Harrison won't question her any further. She sees hesitation for a moment in his eyes, but it passes and he shrugs, scooting backwards up the bed until he sits next to her.

"So, what's up?" His eyes slide shrewdly to look at her from the corners of them. "How'd the water pistols work out?" At this question, Sam lets out a laugh that makes her face come alive in a way Harrison isn't sure he's seen before. So bright, vibrant and warming that he is sure it would have melted the coldest of hearts.

"They worked great. The range was perfect, just like you said it would be. Soaked her pretty good." He watches as her eyes cloud over with inner mirth and his brow furrows gently, not really understanding her expression.

"Why exactly did you feel the need to go to such lengths in order to soak her?" Sam noncommittally shifted her shoulders, still smiling.

"She started it. I just wanted the last word." Harrison's eyebrows rise quizzically.

"Did you get it?" Sam doesn't answer right away, instead looks contemplative while running her fingers through her hair.

"I think…" She can remember the feel of Brooke's wet-clothed torso beneath her fingers, how the blonde's hand had felt in her own. "It was either mutual, or she did. But I don't think I won." Her expression softens, darkens just slightly. It makes him want to hug her, though he has no idea why.

There is silence. Sam looks as though she's floated a million miles away, leaving Harrison alone. Cautiously, really not wanting to startle her this time, he reaches out and lays a hand on her forearm.

"Hey, you okay?" His voice is quiet, gently leading her away from her unhappy, wistful thoughts, and back to a reality that isn't much better. "Did she… do something?"

"_No. That's the problem."_ Sam sighs and shakes her head. "No, I'm just being cryptic. Too many late night supernatural TV shows for me." Her smile is there but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

She needs space, just for a minute, so she makes an excuse and heads for the bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she walks towards the sink and rests her palms on the cool marble surface, staring at her reflection.

"_**What **__am I supposed to do? I don't think I can handle being around her much longer, being this… close, being friends. But I know I wouldn't fair any better if things were different. I could push her away, make her hate me again, but what would that accomplish? I'd still be irrationally in love with her and I'd have made everyone miserable on top of that. Mike and Jane would break if we put them through the early stage of our relationship again. And I'd like to think that Brooke has come to value the friendship we managed to forge, despite my underlying ulterior motive. Because there's no denying I have one."_ She groans, twisting the handle on the cold water faucet violently and bending to splash cold water onto her face. _"What kind of person does that make me? When I willingly entered into a friendship knowing deep down that the whole thing is just a cover for me so I can get as close to her as possible without giving myself away? I've deceived her. Damn, I'm no better than Nicole."_ The thought hits her with a wave of nausea. _"She lies to get ahead, to get closer to whatever it is that she wants. How am I any different than her?"_ She stands and, unable to look at herself any longer, flees the bathroom. She takes a second to compose herself at the door, before pulling it open and re-entering her bedroom.

And her heart seizes in her chest when her eyes land on Harrison, sitting in exactly the same spot he had been when she'd left him, but now holding the notepad she'd set aside in his hands. She feels the cold chill of dread slither through her, making her skin ache, and stops dead, her feet suddenly as heavy as if she were wearing lead boots. There's a loud, rushing sound in her ears and she can't remember how to breathe. The expression on his face tells her everything she needs to know, but still her next question flows dumbly from her lips.

"What…" Her breath hitches and panic laces her voice, throwing it an octave higher than usual. "Harrison, **what** are you doing?" His wide, stunned brown eyes lift from the book he holds and settle on her pale face. His mouth has fallen open and his jaw works a little before can make any sound leave his throat.

"Please tell me you're obsessing over a guy called Brock and I'm just visually impaired." A thrill of hysteria runs through Sam's body and, as always during the most inappropriate circumstances, she's suddenly presented with the urge to laugh. She manages to hold it in, panic and fear squashing it beneath their giant boots. She can't remember how to speak, how to make her body move, her name has even left her for the time being. All she is able to process, is that the person, whatever his name is, sitting on her bed has stumbled across something that was never meant to be seen by anyone. Something that had the power to break and destroy her, and as she stares at him, she can feel it happening.

"You-" Her voice breaks and it sounds painful. "You have to leave." She's struggling to get the words out while he still scrambles to find his own. Sam blinks once, slowly, and in the space of time it took her to do that, she's thrown her walls back up around her, five times as thick as the ones there before, and the fire is back in her previously frighteningly dead eyes. It was like the life had been sucked out of them. "Get out." Her voice doesn't crack anymore, it's stronger than she appears and laced with warning venom. It finally shocks him to his senses.

"Sam, I'm not-"

"**You**." Her voice is quiet, not wanting to draw any attention to them, but it's powerful. "You had no right to look in there." Harrison is starting to panic as he watches her approach the bed slowly. He can't count the number of times he's seen Sam angry about something, the girl has a temper that was only hindered by her tendency to cry when something really got under her skin, but this. This is a rage previously unknown to him. She is shaking, everything from her hands to her voice, her entire being is vibrating. Everything about her screams anger, but he can see the terror locked behind her eyes, and that is the only thing that makes him stay. Sam is frightening when she's pissed.

"You just said it was something stupid you were having problems with, Sam! I thought it was an article!" He says bitingly, knowing that sometimes the only way to handle an angry Sam is to fight fire with fire. She stops in front of him, ripping the notebook from his hands and holding it close to her. "I wanted to help."

"And, surprise surprise, you managed to make things worse." Her eyebrows knit together in a regretful manner as soon as the words leave her mouth, but she doesn't apologise. She stands her ground, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive manner.

"That's great, Sam." Harrison's voice is snide. "You keep lashing out at people every time something happens that you don't know how to handle and you're gonna lose them." Her eyes dart away from him and he can tell his comment struck a nerve, like she's had the thought before.

"You shouldn't have snooped!"

"You left it on the table! If you didn't want there to be any chance of someone seeing it, you should have put it in a drawer or something!" He's yelling at her now and her eyes slide quickly to the door and back.

"That still didn't give you the right to pick it up and peruse it your leisure. It's private, not a damn travel brochure." Sam manages to grind out through clenched teeth. Her knuckles are white against the turquoise of the book.

"You're right." Harrison holds his hands up in surrender, the whole situation dangerously close to imploding. "And I'm sorry, but I can't take it back now." He has no idea what he's doing, how to even begin to deal with something like this, but he knows he needs to calm her down first. "Just… chill out." Sam's eyes find his face again and he watches them flare.

"Chill out? Are you…" Her arms unfold and she lifts her left hand to her forehead, rubbing it forcefully. "Are you kidding me? That is what you're telling me to do? Got to say Harrison, I figured there would be a four letter word in there somewhere, followed closely by the word 'off'."

"Is that really the kind of person you think I am?" He asks, the hurt evident in his voice. It takes her off guard, she wasn't even aware that had been the point she was making. She can't remember actively thinking the words, they'd just been there and she'd said them unthinking. She suddenly, despite everything else, felt terrible. "Obviously there's been some serious stuff going on that I have been **completely** unaware of." He states with saucer-like eyes, glancing prominently at the notebook she is clutching. "But don't for one second think that just because this is quite possibly the most unexpected thing ever to slap me in the face, that I wouldn't be there for you, Sam." Harrison rubs his hands over his thighs absently, smoothing out his jeans. "It kills me that you could think that."

"I don't-" Sam stumbles over her words, her mind racing at a mile a minute. She's finding it increasingly difficult to deal with fear, guilt, and panic at the same time. Her fingers don't feel like they've left her hair for the lat five minutes, repeating tugging nervously at her locks. "I don't think that." When his gaze lifts from his jeans, it's one filled with disdain.

"You **just** said as much." He retorts, his words sharp. Sam's expression becomes pained and her hand moves from her hair so the fingers of it can pinch the bridge of her nose.

"Harrison can you, for two seconds, please stop attacking me? I can't…" Her hand is shaking. "I really can't handle feeling guilty on top of everything right now." Her eyes close and she lifts both hands to hold them in front of herself in an almost pleading motion. "I already have enough of that as it is." His expression sobers, any anger or annoyance draining from him. She looks so vulnerable, like she might break at any moment, and all he wants to do is help somehow.

"Stop giving me reasons to." He speaks softly, not accusing and trying not to provoke her any further. His insides are twisting and he's trying to juggle attempting to come up with something helpful to say and searching for memories of how he dealt with his mom coming out to him. "Sit down?" Her eyes fly to every object in the room, before jumping back and forth between Harrison and the door. Suddenly, she's moving towards it and for an instant he think she's going to leave. But her quivering hands meet the wood of the door, he watches as she stalls to take a deep, audible breath, and she quietly closes it.

"_This isn't supposed to be happening." _Sam's panic flows through her like a chain of high voltage electricity. It shocks her, makes her hair stand on end, and she thinks it might be the death of her. She rests her forehead against the door, hoping Harrison won't talk to her for at least the next 30 seconds. She needs time to wrap her head around the last few minutes of her life. _"I wasn't supposed to be having this conversation with anyone for months. Years." _In all the time she'd spent losing herself in fantasies and conjuring up impossible scenarios, she hadn't given much thought to the act of coming out. The times she had, the imagined event had always managed to go terribly wrong. Her mother cried. Mike gave her looks that would sour milk. And Brooke didn't want to have anything to do with her. She fully understood why she hadn't given it more thought, but now she berated herself for it. _"Didn't think you were stupid enough to leave something so volatile lying around, huh?"_ Her forehead rocks against the door as her deep frown returns. _"Okay. Need to face the music. He hasn't freaked out yet, I think I can take that as a good sign." _Slowly, with painstakingly predetermined movements, Sam turns.

His expression is unreadable. Not in the sense that there's nothing to see there, his eyes are filled with every emotion ever documented and then some, but she's unable to determine what he's thinking because of that. It frightens her, puts her further out on the edge she's been teetering on for what seems like forever now, but she steels herself and makes her feet move, albeit with some difficulty. She sits stiffly on the bed as far away from him as she can get without sitting on the floor. He frowns, noticing, but doesn't say anything.

"Talk to me, Sam. I don't know where to begin here." Sam flicks her eyes to his, apprehension deepening her brown eyes. "When did…" He takes a breath, speaking before his mind even registers that Sam is probably going to need a little help. If he was honest with himself, truly, brutally honest, he would be forced to admit that the reason he is still in the room, trying to retain an aura of calm he knows is vital, is solely because he can't move his legs. He wouldn't be leaving out of anger, but out of the fear of drowning in foreign waters. "When did this happen?" He lifts his right hand to run the palm over his short hair, stopping to scratch his head like a confused cartoon character. "How did I miss this?" He blinks in surprise as a wave of thoughts hit him all at once. "I'm so, **blind**." A short burst of laughter draws Sam's confused face upwards. "You guys have been so close lately. I just thought it was because of the truce. Now that you'd been forced to live in harmony, you'd realised Brooke isn't as bad as you painted her. Which I guess you did, huh?" He doesn't look at her as he asks the question, instead focusing his attention on the exact same spot of wall Sam had been staring at earlier. "The water fight, for crying out loud! You've been flirting right in front of me and I didn't even notice." Harrison shook his head at himself, an odd smile on his face. Sam's frown began to resurface. "Why are things so obvious when you look back on them later?" For a split second he was facing Sam, addressing the question to her but didn't give her time to answer again. "She's way more touchy-feely with you in public… I even saw her hug you the other day!" A grunt of disproval leaves the back of his throat. "You'd think with my mom I'd pick up on the signals a little easier. How long have you guys been sneaking around? How did it even start?" The words are quick and they tangle and trip over themselves, not making sense anymore once they reach Sam's ears.

"What…?" And the meaning finally hits her. Her heart sinks into her stomach, which clenches around it, and she grows numb for a total of 2 seconds before she's crushed under the weight of a pain so raw and massive, it breaks her.

He thinks they're a couple.

She is aware of her hands shaking again and fleetingly wonders if they ever stopped. She doesn't know when her eyes closed, only that she can't open them, and the only thing that indicates she hasn't been killed by the pain rushing through her is the agonised thumping of her heart. She wishes it would stop.

"Sam?" His strange exuberance has vanished. She can feel the concern coming off him in droves, but her vocal cords feel like they've rusted thanks to the tears she's holding in and she can't say anything. Her breathing escalates to a point where is forces her to wonder whether or not she's hyperventilating and her shaking takes a violent turn.

"_It's too much."_ The voice in her mind is quietly, calmly screaming at her. It's unnerving. _"You can't deal with this. This is too much, too soon."_ She feels like her body is shutting down, some kind of defence mechanism. She wishes it would get to the pain quicker.

"Sam, what's-" He doesn't get to finish. As soon as the hand reaching out to comfort her make contact with her shoulder, the break completes itself. Cracking the surface and allowing everything to finally pour out. The tears come from somewhere so deep inside of her, they feel almost ancient after being buried so far down for so long. Heavy and marred with so many untold moments of a history only she was witness to.

She crumples into him, his arm involuntarily snaking around her as her body drops into his comforting embrace. Her sobs shake her as she rests her head, throbbing with a newly acquired ache, against his chest. Harrison's face is a mask of shock and agony as he watches Sam break down and, not knowing what to do or even what's wrong, all her can do is wrap his arms around her and wait until she's ready.

********************

After an immeasurable span of time, Sam's cries quieten. Her shoulders slump, defeated, and he becomes aware that he is, in fact, the only thing holding her up. She feels so weak in his arms, like she'd slide right off the bed if he let her go, and it frightens him. The last time he'd seen her anywhere close to this was when her father had died. And that disturbs him.

"We're not." Sam's harsh, sob-thickened voice reaches his ears. She doesn't move from his embrace, doesn't lift her head to look at him.

"What?" His question is gentle and he hates himself for having to ask such a loaded one, but he doesn't understand. The day is not what he thought it would be.

"Together." The word leaves lips as a aggrieved whisper. And his heart breaks under the weight of the sorrow flowing off of her and guilt he feels as he realises his mistake. He really had been an idiot.

"Oh." He frowns at the overused word. He wants to say he's sorry, but he doesn't know what words to use. He wants to tell her she can talk about it if she wants, even though he isn't entirely sure how he's going to handle it. He wants to know how this happened and wants nothing more to do with it at the same time. It's weird, the whole situation is beyond him and his realm of possibilities. But he knows he needs to keep his head together, for Sam. Because no matter what happens, she's his best friend. She's Sam. And he'll love her forever.

********************

"Well, Sam." She hears him take a breath. "I'm right here if you need to…" Feels his hand move in a gesture, finishing his sentence for him. Talk? She doesn't want to talk about this. She wasn't ever supposed to have to talk about this. This was supposed to go away, fade with time. She appreciates him offering her an ear, she does. If she would be allowed a moment to reflect on anything that has transpired in what will go down as one of the most traumatic periods of time in her life, she would be thankful, and frankly astonished that he is taking it so well. But she doesn't want to do any of that. She wants to crawl into a hole and die.

Because talking about it makes it real. Having Harrison know, question her about it, makes it real. And once it's real, there's no avoiding it. No pretending it isn't there, no hoping it will go away. Because she's been able to see through her denial all along to the crystal clear reality that is knowing that it won't. That loving Brooke is something she'll suffer and struggle with for the rest of her life. Sam is, usually, pretty smart. She knows the facts and what she's capable of. She knows it's an inevitability. A labyrinth of hurt and confusion, and undying love, longing and affection that she won't ever escape from. There's no golden string, no silver lining, just the cold hard truth.

And despite the predicament she's landed herself in, she's not too stupid to realise there's no avoiding that.

"You saw the book, Harrison." Sam's voice is still rough as she pulls away from him, face weary, eyes dark but red-rimmed. "You know as much as I do." Because beyond knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she loved Brooke, she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"But…" A far-off look in his eyes, he gets to his feet and paces once to the door and back, resting his hands on his hips as he looks down at her. Blinking up at him, she's struck with the ridiculous notion that he looks like a less elf-ish Peter Pan. "When? How?" Sam lifts her hands to her face, rubbing at her eyes with her fingers, tiredly. It's as though all the strain of the last few months, all the moments of pure joy and desperate sadness have suddenly decided they want the energy that had been spent back. Dragging it from her.

"Two excellent questions." There's a lilt to her voice that is recognisable, but it's only echo of the buoyant carefree attitude she usually spoke with. Almost as though it was put there forcibly. "Neither of which I have an answer for." Her hands were tingling. Good, she was regaining feeling in them. "I just know that at some point things… changed. For me. And now I'm trapped in this sphere of trepidation and self loathing and the only time I get a break from them rolling back on each other is during the moments when she makes me forget. By smiling or making me laugh or just…" Her voice drops and she heaves a sigh as she breathes her next words, resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands. "Looking at me. But they always roll back around later. I hate myself for feeling this way, but I'll die if I try to stop."

Blank shock painted Harrison's face as he stared at the top of her head. He didn't know what he was expecting, but a confession that raw was not it. What was he supposed to say to that? 'I know how you must feel' was definitely out of the picture.

"It was there before mom and I moved in here." Sam continues without prompt, saving Harrison for the moment. It was as though now the floodgates have been opened, she can't stop the flow of words. "I think that just… exacerbated the whole thing. I tried, but I couldn't keep substituting what I was really feeling for hate, I couldn't summon the strength. And now it's just become easier to admit everything to myself, let myself feel these things. Enjoy them while I can, until I remember that it's something I can't have." Her voice trembles, ever so slightly, and she sniffs. A hiccup accompanies her next words. "God, Harrison… it's killing me. Every time I let myself enjoy being around her…" Sam lifts her head again, shaky fingers pulling at her hair. "That's what all of last week was about. That stupid water fight. I didn't care about getting the last word, I just wanted to see her laugh. I just wanted to be close to her. That's why I fought with her in the first place, it's the only safe way to get close… to get all of this, this emotion inside me out. But everything that makes me feel good has this huge drawback of making me feel like I want to toss myself off a building, because I know that our friendship," She says the word in a way that makes Harrison wonder if it causes her physical pain. "Won't ever be anything more." Her teary eyes find his, so filled with sadness and pain that it makes his stomach clench and heart ache. Her next words are a hoarse whisper. "And I don't know how I'm supposed to handle that." Speechless, he sits back down next to her and wraps a tentative arm back around her shoulders.

"I don't…" He stops, gathering his thoughts. "I don't really know what to say, Sam." Or lack thereof. "This is all kind of way out of my league. I'm no magazine-level love expert." He pauses. "Or a love expert of any kind, having never actually had a real girlfriend." The comment pulls at the edges of Sam's lips. "But I kind of…" He shifts, unsure of how to say what he wants to without coming across as an ass. "Understand a little about where your coming from."

"Right. You've delved into the unrequited love territory." Sam sniffs again, wiping away her tears with her thumb. "What is it about Brooke that makes people fall hopelessly in love with her?" He blinks slowly at Sam's use of the word 'love'. Having it clarified out loud makes the whole situation even more unreal. "She's like an evil backward genie." The way it is said, misery soaking the silly words, makes Harrison's shoulders shake in a chuckle. "How do you deal with it?" At Harrison's confused look, Sam elaborates with a wave of her hand. "With Brooke. With being so ridiculously happy just being in the same room as her, wanting so badly to be more than just friend is eats you alive every moment you allow yourself to think about it." He doesn't reply for a long time, just stares into Sam's wide, watery eyes.

"I loved Brooke." He begins cautiously, weighing his words before he speaks them. "There was nothing more I wanted than to be with her. But…" He reaches forward, stealing a tear from Sam's cheek. "What you've just explained to me, how you feel about her… it makes what I felt sound like puppy love."

"Felt?" Harrison sends a half smile her way.

"I guess love is sometimes fickle. I don't really have to deal with Brooke so much anymore. The object of my affection kind of… changed, recently." His eyes drop embarrassedly and at the same time, Sam's close.

"Harrison, I'm so-"

"You don't have to apologise, Sam. You didn't make me…" He sighs. "What I feel really doesn't matter right now."

"How much do you hate me?" The question takes him off guard, his hand dropping from around Sam.

"What?" She looks up at him, fearful of how he might answer. "Sammie, I could never hate you. This isn't your fault, I know you didn't go looking for this. Shit happens, you can't control it." She smiles at his words but still looks pained. A few seconds later, her finds out why.

"Thank you. But… can you please not call me that?" Surprised by the question, he nods a little woodenly.

"Okay." There is a beat of silence. "Mind if I ask why it's such a sore spot all of a sudden?"

"Because anytime anyone says it, it reminds me of Brooke." The words are heavy and sodden. She feels helpless and weak and she hates herself for it. "And how nobody says it like she does." Sam pulls at the sleeves of her turtleneck sweater until they cover her hands and then rubs her face with them, suddenly annoyed. "This is so stupid."

"It's not stupid-"

"It's pretty messed up, Harrison. I mean, god! We're going to be sisters when my mom and Mike get married!" Sam's voice is beginning to take on an edge of hysteria again. "What am I going to do then? I need to make this go away!"

"Sam…"

"I can't… feel this for the rest of my life, I can't. What if she found out? What if our parents found out?"

"Sam."

"I don't know how to make it stop, Harrison. I need to but I ca-"

"Sam!" His voice is demanding, but not loud, and it finally catches her attention. There is an almost frenzied wildness in her eyes now, but it softens as he speaks. "It's not going to go away. The stuff you're describing never does. You just have to find a way to deal."

"How am I supposed to do that?" She sounds like a lost little girl as her body flops to the side and she rests her head on his shoulder. She doesn't really expect an answer and he is glad for that, because he doesn't have one.

"Does she know?" A harsh bark of laughter rips itself from Sam's throat.

"No. God no." Her misery tears at him as if it was a beast with sharp teeth, intent on destroying everything it can touch.

"I want to help. But I'm pretty sure there's no way I can." He says after another long moment of silence. She lifts her head and shakes it, wiping at her tears again and bravely trying to compose herself.

"Just telling you all of this has helped. I feel… lighter." She pats him reassuringly on his knee.

"Gotta say Sam, I never thought I'd be having this conversation with you." Her laughter makes him feel better.

"Yeah." She draws the word out so it is long and breathy. "I didn't think I'd ever be having this conversation. With anyone."

"Well I'm glad you picked me." His voice is teasing. Her eyes dart to him, an 'are you kidding me?' look on her face. But she is smiling again, and that's all he cares about.

"You didn't give me much of a choice, Snoopy." He laughs and makes a ridiculous panting motion with his tongue.

"You know, now that I've brought you a little ways out of the valley of depression…" He turns his body so he is sitting sideways on the bed, his right leg tucked underneath him. "You've totally been cock-blocking me." Sam's eyes widen to the size of doughnuts.

"What? Harrison! I have not!" Outrage colours her voice, embarrassment her cheeks. He stares at her, his expression mostly blank but with amusement clouding the edges.

"Sam. You have. Maybe not intentionally, but it's what you've been doing." His eyebrow rise and he shakes his head to stress his conviction. "I can't count how many times you've told me that I didn't have a chance with Brooke."

"I never said-" He holds a hand up, gently cutting her off.

"Maybe not in as many words, but the thought was there." She becomes subdued at his words, silently folding. She hadn't realised it at the time of course, but now she can admit that he's probably right. She'd done everything in her power to make sure he and Brooke hadn't ended up together.

"_Great. More guilt. Soon I'll be able to open up a chain of superstores."_

"I'm not saying it to make you feel guilty, Sam." She frowns at him, wondering if he has an unknown ability to read minds. "I actually find it funny, in a weird way."

"You find **this** funny?" Her eyebrows shoot in the opposite direction.

"No! No, this is… this is a pretty horrific situation. I meant the hugely less important detail of you cock-blocking me." Sam wrinkles her nose in distaste.

"Stop saying that." Harrison laughs and then apologises. "I'm kind of…" She turns her head to look at him. "Really surprised by how abnormally well you're taking this."

"After everything with my mom," He reaches up to rub his earlobe with his thumb and forefinger. "After being such an insensitive…" There is a pause as he searches for the most appropriately descriptive word. "asshole, I realised that there was no point in being angry or upset with someone because you didn't like the choices they made. Because it was never a choice to begin with. My mom had hidden who she was for so long, it wasn't a case of her waking up one day and being like, 'Oh, okay, today I'll become a lesbian to ruin my son's life'. And I know it's stupid, but part of me thought that's what she'd done for a long time. I was so angry with her for making this huge decision without even talking to me first. She just came to me one day and announced that she was batting for a different team. But now I get that she'd been playing for that side all along, so there's no way I can get mad at you for something that isn't your fault." He smiles at her and receives a quivering one in return. She's going to cry again. "It's just who you are Sam and people can either except that and go on having the privilege of being your friend, or they can be assholes and push you away because they don't understand, don't want to understand what you're telling them." Harrison's shoulders lift and then descend. "I'd really like to do the former. If that's okay? Unless you were looking for an argument to blow off some steam, in which case I'm sure I can unearth a really mean word to call you in-" He is cut off mid sentence as a, yet again, very teary Sam throws herself at him and wraps her arms around his neck. She slurs something unintelligible into his shoulder and his frame shakes with quiet laughter. "What?"

"I thought you were going to hate me!" His laughter grows, eyes crinkling at the edges, and he pats the brunette's back in slow smooth motions.

"Sam, what kind of best friend would I be if I kicked you when you were down?" She hiccups, loudly.

"A really bad one."

And that seems to be the end of it. For now at least. Though none the wiser regarding what she should do about her situation, actually talking about it, out loud, has helped more than she had imagined it would. And not having Harrison leave in a storm cloud of anger and hate had been an unexpected bonus. Whenever she'd played the scenario of him finding out through her head, he had always been very confused. Then angry, yelling about how he couldn't believe she was doing this to him after his own mother had done the same. She feels silly now, thinking he could have ever reacted so selfishly. He's a good guy. It hurts her to think she'll never be able to give him what he wants, but maybe now he knows there really is no chance of them ever being anything more than just best friend he can move on.

They lie there quietly for a long time, just listening to the silence. Sam so close she might as well be on his knee, Harrison's arms wrapped securely around her. An hour ago, the position they are in would have made her incredibly uncomfortable, constantly aware of where his feelings lay, but now it felt like things have shifted between them. And that they are stronger because of it. So she relaxes into his embrace, allows herself to feel a measure of comfort that has eluded her, quite expertly, for a long time now.

And that's exactly how Brooke finds them. Sam looking comfortable in Harrison's embrace. She'd knocked, but hadn't waited for an answer.

She hasn't **needed** to wait for an answer for months now.

"Sam, I need-" She stops dead. Sam's eyes shoot to Brooke's so fast, she is sure she'll feel whiplash later. "Oh." How one word, a small one-syllable word, can carry so much emotion, Sam doesn't know. But at that second, she feels it as clear as a slap to the face. She just can't decide what exactly can be detected in it, and by the time she gathers herself enough to try and figure it out, Brooke's face has become the cleverly controlled blank mask that she'd so often seen during the days of the 'Sam/Brooke War'. "Sorry, I didn't know you had company."

********************

"It's fine. It's just Harrison." Sam's smile is wide as she rights herself and puts a little distance between herself and Harrison, reaching out at her words to tap the side of his face with her palm in a condescending motion. He rolls his eyes. Sam laughs.

And Brooke's skin begins to crawl.

Her eyes scan the scene before her, feeling her stomach churn.

"_What the hell is going on?"_ She wants to scream it at both of them, because she can't find an explanation for the image being presented to her. They had, for lack of a better word, been snuggling on Sam's bed. With the door closed. His arms had been wrapped around her, holding her close, and Sam had been letting him. Looking for all the world, to Brooke's eyes, like she belonged there. And the image was wrong, so wrong she'd recoiled visibly at it, throwing herself back a few paces like she'd been burnt. Until she stood back in the doorway, afraid to move back into the room.

"I'll just-" Her breath catches painfully in her throat and she tries to disguise it as a cough. "I'll leave you two alone." She pulls the door closed behind her, cursing her feet for not being able to carry her away fast enough.

********************

Sam stares at the closed door for a moment and then shakes her head in confusion.

"That was weird. I wonder what she wanted." She turns to find Harrison still looking at the door, a quizzical expression on his face. "What?"

"Hmm?" Sam's voice pulls his eyes towards her. "Oh, nothing." But he is still frowning. She pokes him in his ribs. "Ow!" Pouting, he rubs at his side. "I'm probably over-analyzing, but I was just wondering about Brooke." He turns away from the door to face her. "Are you sure she doesn't know?"

"Believe me when I say that I would rather step in front of a moving car than tell Brooke about any of this. So yeah, considering I'm still in one piece, I'm pretty sure she doesn't know." She gives him a withering look. "Why would you even ask that?"

"I don't know." His hand goes to his hair again, fingers running through it. "Guess I'm just wondering why I jumped to the conclusion that you were dating." He punctuates his sentence with a shrug.

"Because you're a deluded, horny teenage boy?" Sam offers with a helpful smile.

"Well, obviously, but I thought maybe there might be more to it." Brown eyes roll and Sam stands, making her way to the bathroom.

"I think that's just your hormones overpowering your brain, Harri." She sighs. _"But don't I wish it were different."_ "I'm going to fix my face." She throws over her shoulder as she disappears through the door. For the second time that day, she finds herself in front of the mirror. Only now, she can look at herself a little longer. Even with her tear stains and gently smudged mascara. And while she is still helplessly in love with someone who wouldn't look at her twice and even though she still has no idea what to do about it, she feels lighter. An almost undetectable amount more at ease with herself, but it is there and she can feel it. Who knew one conversation could change so much?


	12. Interlude

**Interlude; a) intervening period of time: a relatively short period of time between two longer periods, during which something happens that is different from what has happened before and what follows.**

**A/N: Holy s**t. I had NO idea it had been so long between updates until I went back through the entries to find the last one. I'm really sorry. =|**

***********

Sam

Harrison left around an hour ago and Sam has spent the time since revelling in her new sense of lightness. She would never have guessed that just talking about her feelings would make her feel better, which in hindsight had been rather silly of her because her mother has been telling her that for years and is so secure in the knowledge that Sam feels she'll be told it for years to come still. Only now she really knows just how much of a difference talking can make. She won't roll her eyes at her mother again. Not for saying that anyway.

She lays with her back flat against the bed, staring at the ceiling as her legs dangle over the end, feet kicking in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Her hands are threaded together and provide her head with a pillow that is somewhat less comfortable than her actual one, but she can't be bothered to move up the bed to reach it. Her ceiling is very interesting. She's closed her curtains so Harrison isn't tempted to stand at his own window making hand gestures that somehow convey the message 'Sam and Brooke, sitting in a tree…'. Making people laugh has always been his way of dealing with a difficult situation.

She's always liked her room at the Palace. Okay, maybe not always, but after she stopped actively boycotting the move and the merging of households, Mike had let her do what she wanted with it. Oranges and browns are the base colours, the running themes, and Sam has systematically matched everything from the bedding to the wardrobes to them. She smirks remembering Brooke's reaction when she had told her what colour she was painting it. She was pretty sure her face had paled and then turned a startling shade of green, but Brooke's worries of 'gaudy' and 'looking like the inside of a pumpkin' were unfounded, and Sam had been smug and triumphant the day she'd unveiled it to the public and Brooke had been forced to admit that it did indeed look quite tasteful. Cozy. Sam likes it, the burnt oranges make her feel like she's surrounded on all sides by roaring fireplaces. There are a lot of pictures, framed and collaged, scattered around. Her father, mother, both of them together. A recent one of her 'new' family that she has framed on her computer desk. Her eyes dart to it now and even though she can't see it clearly, she can see the image with crystal-like clarity in her mind. It had been taken during a family outing to the beach. A helpful fellow beach-goer had kindly offered to take a picture of all of them as Mike tried to get her and Brooke to stop play-fighting long enough to take a photo that wouldn't turn out with Jane clear and the two of them nothing but blurs. Giggling, they managed to calm themselves as Mike settled himself next to Jane. The helpful stranger began counting back from 3 and before 'say cheese' could leave his lips, Brooke apparently hadn't been able to hold back any longer and dove at Sam, laughter exploding from both of them as Sam's back hit the sand and Brooke's shorts and bikini top-clad body fell onto her. The picture shows them seconds after impact, with Sam desperately reaching for a handful of sand as Brooke utilizes her own by pouring it into Sam's shorts, and Mike and Jane laughing despite the real desire to have a nice, calm family picture for once.

Sam has looked at that photograph a lot.

"_I can't believe Harrison knows."_ It is such a strange feeling to her. After hiding the ones she has for Brooke for so long, suddenly having someone else know about them wasn't something she had anticipated. It feels good, but strange. She's replayed their conversation in her head countless times, trying to commit the important moment to memory, and at the same time trying to make it real, because it doesn't feel it yet.

But she always stalls at the moment that had been at the tail end of Harrison's visit. Brooke's impromptu arrival. It conjures up a number of questions that Sam doesn't know what to do with. First up was the fact that Brooke had visibly reacted, weirdly, when she'd entered the room and found Harrison there. Which throws the usually unpleasant question of 'why?' Sam's way.

"_Was she just surprised? It's not like Harrison comes over a lot."_ Sam lifts a hand from behind her head and absently chews on the tip of her thumb. _"Or is it something god awful like she has unexplored, previously undetected feelings for him?"_ It's sadly not the first time she's had the thought and she knows it won't be the last. Brooke had been his best friend before her, there was a connection. He'd had feelings for her, who knew if they'd been reciprocated at any point or if they would be someday? The thought makes her stomach roll and she pushes it away with a lingering wonder about why Brooke had showed up at her room at all. _"I'm an idiot, I've been in here silently stewing when she could have needed something important." _She rolls into a standing position and makes her way into and through their adjoining bathroom, knocking on the door to Brooke's room before poking her head in. Her eyes scan the room until she finds Brooke sitting curled on her left side on her bed with a book in her hands and wearing an oversized grey wool cardigan that Sam doesn't recall seeing before. It looks comfy. Hazel eyes lift to look at her through square reading glasses. Sam's heart skips a beat at the scene before her. How can Brooke make reading look utterly adorable? Sexy even.

"What?" There's an edge of coldness to Brooke's voice that Sam barely recognises anymore. It startles her and the smile that had crept onto her face at the first sight of Brooke droops at the corners. However, the hope that she's imaged the blonde's harsh tone carries her feet into the room. Brooke's eyes have returned to her book and she doesn't watch Sam's entrance.

"Sorry about earlier with Harrison, you didn't have to leave though." A crude, derisive sound leaves Brooke's throat and Sam blinks at it, her face the very picture of shocked disbelief.

"I didn't want to interrupt." Brooke's voice is heavy with disdainful sarcasm and there's no way Sam can hope it isn't there anymore.

"What?" Her brow is furrowed in confusion and she doesn't understand why Brooke won't look at her. "You weren't in-"

"Was there something you wanted, Sam? I'm kinda busy." You know the nursery rhyme about sticks and stones breaking bones but words not being able to hurt? It's a lie. The words cut through Sam like a knife. She can feel it sink in and settle there, stealing her breath for a second. Then the adrenaline kicks in, the anger. She doesn't know why Brooke is being a bitch, but she isn't about to stand there and take it.

"Was there something **you** wanted?" Her arms fold themselves defensively across her chest, hip cocked, and she stares at Brooke frigidly. "Or did you just feel like barging into my room unannounced?" Sam blinks and because of that can't be sure whether she sees Brooke flinch or if her eyes are playing tricks on her.

"Get a lock." She doesn't look up from the book as she replies, just turns the page. "And no, there wasn't." Sam's throat feels like it's on fire. She needs to get out of this room, away from the ice queen Brooke has suddenly become.

"Fine." There's a pause as Sam feels her lip begin to tremble and takes a fraction of a second to control it, despising the fact that she has to. "Whatever." She hates that she can't think of anything better to say. She closes both doors a litter harder than necessary and only manages to make it to the foot of her bed before she collapses on the floor against the side of it, a shaking mess of silent wracking sobs. _"Oh my god, just stop." _A voice finally tells her after a few minutes. _"Why are you getting so upset? Like Brooke has never bitched at you before."_ The point is, she thought they'd reached a stage where bitchiness wasn't an option anymore, not something either of them desired. It has been a long time since Brooke spoke to her like that, and it's a shock to her system. Akin to being toasty warm by in front fire and then having the floor fall out from beneath you and you're plunged into a freezing cold lake. In the tiny amount of time it has taken her to walk from Brooke's room to her own, her entire reality has crumbled at the thought that something, somehow, has been lost. Taken away from their friendship and it has fallen to pieces without her even realising it. Was she so wrapped up in her own feelings and longing that she'd missed something imperative? The thought twists the knife deeper. Sam doesn't think she can handle their friendship falling apart. Not now. She thinks she'll die if things go back to how they used to be. No, she knows she will, because she'd happily throw herself off a building rather than go back to that now. After everything, after knowing what being Brooke's friend can be like, what it can make her feel, to have that ripped from her would destroy her. The very idea causes her heart to palpitate itself right into a panic attack.

Finally, after innumerable deep breaths, she calms herself enough to wipe her eyes and crawl back onto her bed.

"_She's made me into such a spaz."_ Sam sighs, brushing her hair aside and fixing her eyes on her very interesting ceiling once more. _"Just the thought of her being mad at me makes me curl up and cry. What the hell happened to me? I used to be ballsy." _She wipes an errant tear from her cheek._ "I think. Ugh, I'm so whipped. How did this happen? We aren't even in a relationship and she already has me doing emotional back flips like I'm her damn show dog." _She scoots her body to the head of her bed and props a pillow up behind her. Reaching over, she opens the drawer to her bedside table and pulls out her turquoise notebook, flipping it open to the first page. She uses it as a kind of secondary journal. After the amount of times Brooke has read her actual one, she's a little more careful about where she writes the stuff people really can't see. Which means the whole book is pretty much a shrine to the blonde in the next room. And turning to a blank page, Sam picks up a pen and begins to write.

_Why has Brooke suddenly turned into the Ice Queen again? I thought things were great between us. I thought we were friends. I __need__ us to be friends. If I don't have that, then I go back to being like every other person who has watched Brooke from afar, riddled with unrequited love. I can't be that person again, not now I've had more. I don't want to be like everyone else - I need to feel like we have some kind of connection. Because if I don't have that, if I go back to being like everyone else, __I think I'll__… god, I don't even know what I'm trying to say anymore. I need to feel like she's picked me. Out of all the people who adore her, she picked me to be closer to. And I know she has no idea that I'm among the millions, I know she probably didn't 'pick' me at all - just stopped hating me and we finally started to get along - but I still feel special. And if that gets taken away… I think I'd break. I need to be able to feel like there's a connection between us so I have an outlet for my insane hormonal feelings. I think being allowed to be friends with her helps me deal in a weird way. Of course, it makes things worse a lot of the time too. Sometimes we're too close and all I can think about is how we'll never be as close as I want us to be. And then I feel guilty, because I'm completely using her in way. I project this image of being a friend, go along with this façade of only wanting to be a friend, and she has no idea. I'm like one of those creepy stalkers that get to know their victims first, put forth the hand of friendship and then yank it back with their catch in tow. I can't help it… it's sick and twisted, and undeniably pathetic, but I think I need Brooke to live now. She has something, however unknowingly, some part of me and if it was taken away I'd never be complete again. Ugh, I sound like some sappy lead in a romance novel. But she just… she's completely captivated me. And I don't even want to try and break free. I look at her in a room full of people and I can't even see anyone else. And I'm okay with that. Why? Why am I okay with loving someone who can never love me back? I mean, I know it mostly makes me miserable, but when you get right down to it… I need her to breathe and I like that. She makes my life brighter. And if I have to be miserable most of the time in order to be able to achieve those shining moments where she looks at me and I can pretend I'm the only person she sees… whatever. I can live with that. _

Sam pauses, chewing on the end of her pen as she reads over the last sentence, before adding to it.

_I think._

**********

She is walking. Somewhere outside, there are trees and she can see flashing light in the distance. She doesn't know how she got here. The music reaches her ears the very second Brooke enters her line of sight, almost as if it is announcing her presence. Like the harmonious melody that so often accompanies the arrival of an angel. And Brooke looks just as heavenly, not needing wings to help Sam fly, but the music is more rowdy, frenzied and filled with whistles and other odd sound effects.

"You came!" Brooke reaches her, lips stretched in a smile Sam secretly likes to believe is one reserved solely for her, sending warmth through her. She's wearing white, a simple shorts and tank top outfit, but Brooke could never look anything less than stunning no matter what she wears.

"Of course I came." Sam finds herself replying with an enthusiasm that matches Brooke's, even though she still has no idea how she got here or why Brooke had been expecting her. The blonde reaches down and grabs Sam's hand with both of her own. Sam feels her heart flutter.

"Come on, there's someone I want you to meet." She turns and leads them to a path Sam hadn't seen before, hadn't been walking on, and they make their way towards the lights.

"Where are we going?" Brooke's laughter is a new kind of music that drowns out the shrill whistles. Sam feels her hand being squeezed and looks down to find Brooke's fingers entwined with her own.

"Sam, don't you remember?" She is momentarily mesmerized as Brooke tosses her hair to the side and turns her head to look at Sam. "The carnival is in town!" Brooke's excitement makes Sam's materialize and bubble over, and suddenly they're standing in the middle of their path, jumping up and down like five-year-olds, and then they're running. Their hands are still locked together and for a moment, as the wind rushes in her ears and blows Brooke's hair back from her beautiful face, they're a couple. They've become 'Sam and Brooke' and she can see Christmas cards and presents addressed accordingly. In that moment, Sam has everything she ever wants. But their path comes to an end. "You look funny." Brooke is laughing at something and Sam somehow finds the strength to look away from her and follow her gaze. Her eyes travel the silvery length of the fun house mirror that stands alone before them. It looks odd and out of place. Sam frowns as she looks at her reflection. It keeps changing, she goes from looking tall and skinny to short and fat, with brief, almost non-existent moments in between where she looks normal. She wonders why Brooke doesn't have a reflection.

"Is this what I'm supposed to see?" Sam looks down at herself and then back at the mirror.

"No." Brooke is laughing again. "This is just in the way, we have to get around it." She feels a tugging on her hand and finds herself moving again. They sidestep the mirror and continue along the path.

Out of nowhere, they are unexpectedly surrounded by flashing lights, people and loud music. Alarmed, Sam's spins, loosing her grip on Brooke's hand and looks back the way they came, but their path is gone. Turning back, she feels panic welling within her, because she's suddenly in the middle of a massive crowd of people and Brooke is nowhere to be seen. Frenzied, she begins to call out for her, but even she can't hear her voice over the shouts of the people around her. Some of the faces she recognises, most she doesn't. none are friendly. They sneer and yell, but she can't make out what they're saying. She's afraid. She reaches up and rubs her face with the palm of her hands.

"Sam?" Brooke's voice breaks through the noise and Sam opens her eyes, straining to look over the heads of the people making up the mob around her. The panic disappears as she spots Brooke standing in a grassy area, away from the harsh lights, alone. "It's safe over here." Her voice soothes Sam's soul. The mob parts, though still yelling, and she walks hurriedly to Brooke's side. The blonde reaches for her hands again, smiling almost uncontrollably. Sam can hear her heart in her ears as Brooke steps closer and leans to whisper in her ear. "I have a surprise for you.'

"What is it?" Sam's voice is quiet, she doesn't trust herself to speak any louder. She can feel it, the moment she's been waiting for, approaching. She can practically taste the ink on the cards.

"The person I want you to meet." Brooke has pulled back and is walking away. Sam is confused, can feel the moment slipping. "You can come out now." Brooke's eyes are still on her as she speaks and Sam's heartbeat skips and falters. Then her eyes are drawn to the an area where a rustling sound is coming from and a figure steps out from behind a tree. It moves to stand next to Brooke, takes her hand, drawing her attention away from Sam. Prompts an adoring smile to light Brooke's face. And Sam's heart stops altogether. "Sam, this is my boyfriend." And Brooke is staring at him like he's the only thing she can see.

**********

She jerks awake, groaning loudly as the crick in her neck registers and shoots a thin strand of pain down to the middle of her back. A small frown line creases her brow and then her eyes flutter open to confusedly take in the room around her.

"_I don't remember falling asleep."_ Rubbing her eyes, she wonders if there has ever been an instance when **anyone **remembered the exact point at which they had fallen asleep. She runs her fingers through her sleep-dishevelled hair and lets out a noisy breath through her nose. Sleepy brown eyes drift to the bathroom door. She can hear Brooke going through her morning routine in there. Can picture her movements as she closes her eyes.

And then her dream comes flooding back to her, giving her an instant headache and making her groan again, louder than before. She rolls onto her stomach and buries her face into the pillow, letting out a quiet scream of frustration. Movements jerky with annoyance, Sam flops over onto her back again and then goes still as she notices the silence coming from the bathroom. She wonders briefly if Brooke maybe heard her and is considering coming in to check if she's okay, but then she hears the sound of the shower running and finally her heart begins to beat again.

"_Get a grip, Sam."_

**********

The events of the previous day weigh heavily upon Sam as she descends the stairs, making for the kitchen in the hopes that she'll be able to force something in her that will resemble breakfast. She thinks it's horrendously unfair that after having such a huge weight lifted by Harrison sticking his nose in, another even bigger one is dropped onto her shoulders within minutes of the last one vacating.

It looms like a black cloud over the kitchen as she enters and finds Brooke already at the table eating. There's a tense moment of stillness as Brooke becomes aware of Sam's presence, and Sam watches the blonde's hand freeze halfway to her mouth and her eyes travel upwards, as if trying to discern who is standing in front of her just by looking at her clothes. Their eyes meet for a fraction of a second and then Brooke's attention is back on the magazine in front of her and her spoonful of cereal has resumed its journey to her mouth.

Sam's heart freezes in her chest at the complete lack of a good morning or a smile, the usual greeting, and she has to remind herself to breathe and not fall to pieces because it hadn't been a dream. Something had happened, she'd done **something** to ruin it. 'It' being the, she was fairly certain, most important friendship she'd ever had, and that wasn't to say the ones she had with Harrison, Lily or Carmen were any less important to her. But what she had with Brooke had transcended anything she'd ever experienced before. And she'd ruined it.

"_God, you're an idiot."_ She chastises herself, staring down at her ruffled sleep attire and running her fingers through dishevelled hair. _"Don't even know what you did."_ Moving to the fridge, she has just enough time to pull out an apple before the phone rings. Jumping slightly, she moves to answer it with a very monotone 'hello'.

"Well if it isn't my little Ellen in training." For the first time since Brooke had once again deemed her unworthy of civility, Sam smiled.

"What if it hadn't been me who answered?" A wry chuckle is the first response she receives.

"Come on, Sam. Only you could answer the phone with such misery."

"You know, if you'd called five minutes earlier you would have woken me. Not a good way to start my day." She can hear him smiling on the other side of the phone. _"Not that my day started off anywhere close to good anyway." _

"Doesn't sound like you've had the most spectacular of starts anyway. Besides, I checked to see if your curtains were open first, I'm not **that **inconsiderate." Sam holds the apple to her chest, looking faux-touched.

"Sigh, my very own stalker." He laughs and she takes a bit of the apple.

"So, how're… things?" The pause before that six letter word tells Sam everything she needs to know about its meaning, and the fruit turns to ash in her mouth.

"Uh…."

"Oooh, hesitation. Not good." Sam manages to swallow the fruit and glances askance at Brooke.

"No. It um… I can't really-"

"She there?"

"Yeah. Hold on." Grasping her willpower with both hands to stop her eyes from drifting, Sam walks the short distance past Brooke to the laundry room. "Sorry, I relocated to the laundry room." She tells him, closing the door.

"Wow, is it that bad?" His voice holds an element of worry she can't quite believe is there considering the subject matter. The previous nights events really had gone better than she could have ever expected.

"I don't know what happened!" She explains, her voice a hushed but panicked whisper. "After you left I went to see what she wanted and…" Sam pauses to release a heavy sigh and closes eyes, suddenly finding her vision clouded by tears when she opens them again. "It was like how she was in the beginning all over again. Like I was some peon who had accidentally wondered into her palace covered in pig slop. She was so cold… couldn't wait for me to leave." Her brow creases as she leans against the washing machine with a thunk.,

"Sam, stop freaking out, because I know you are." She knows he's smiling on the other end and somehow it makes her feel better. "She's probably PMSing."

"No, this wasn't the usual 'if you put an empty milk carton back into the fridge, I'll kill you' kind of thing. This was…" She trails off, unsure if she even possesses a word for what it was and exactly how it had made her feel. "Different. She hasn't said one word to me this morning…"

"Ouch."

"Harrison, I can't go back to the ice age it was before, I can't." She finally confesses out loud, her voice barely a whisper.

"It won't, Sam. I promise." Sam lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes screwing closed.

"How do you know?"

"C'mon. No one can be mad at you for long. It's those big brown eyes, pouty lips, the way your hips sway when-"

"Harrison!" She laughs and opens her eyes to roll them.

"Made you laugh. Now get back into the kitchen before she really starts to consider that you're talking about her in here." He pauses and she pushes herself off of the washing machine, hoping Harrison's words had even the smallest iota of truth to them. "Hey, what's she wearing?" Sam's eyes widen and her cheeks flare as her hand twists the doorknob and she pushes the door open.

"Harrison!" She squeals again, entering the kitchen to find Brooke's hazel eyes on her for a millisecond, before they return to the magazine in front of her. "Stop it." She chastises, her tone slightly more lacklustre but still holding amusement.

"Don't be such a Brooke hog. Is she still wearing her silky pjs?" Sam's jaw drops as she strides across the kitchen, trying not to pay attention to the blonde.

"Oh my god, do you like, spend your entire out of school existence watching through your window?"

"I break to eat." He jokes and she can hear him smiling.

"You're like a dirty old man." She hears Brooke clear her throat behind her and her heart tugs at her stomach as she registers the annoyance in the gesture. _"Great. First she doesn't talk to me, now I can't talk at all." _She tries to keep her smile steady as she moves into the hallway off the kitchen that leads out back to the pool. Removing the temptation to look when she can't touch. "But as much as this conversation is entertaining-"

"Is it the shorts? Is she wearing the shorts?" Sam's brow furrows in amused bewilderment.

"Which ones?"

"Those dark blue ones with the-"

"Oh. No shorts." Sam waves her hand dismissively and then balls it into loose a fist as she hears chuckling coming from the other end of the line.

"You totally know which pair I'm talking about! You're a bigger perv than I am!" Her cheeks flare once more and she drops her hand as she realises she's been caught. She shakes her head.

"Goodbye, Mister John. I leave you to your window seat of pervitutde."

"Sammi-" His laughter rings in her ear even as she hangs up the phone. Even with Brooke still acting stony, she feels better for talking to him. But now as she faces the door leading back into the kitchen, she finds she needs to take an even deeper breath than usual. Because what if he's wrong?

When she re-enters the kitchen, Sam's heart drops like a lead weight. Cereal bowl left half full in front of it, the seat where Brooke had been sitting is empty and the blonde is gone. The sound of a door being closed upstairs is the only thing that assures Sam that she had even been there at all.

"_What did I do?"_

* * *

Brooke

She feels sick. It started in the center of her stomach and branched outward until it hit the base of her throat, settling there and swelling until she could barely breathe. Her hand shakes as she fumbles for the door and closes it, pressing her forehead against the cool of the wood as the silence of her empty room swirls around her head and deafens her.

She'd been in his arms. She'd looked comfortable there, like she belonged. He'd been holding her, they'd been **snuggling** on Sam's bed, and Sam had been smiling, had acted like there was nothing strange about it when she'd walked in. The lump in her throat gets bigger and her eyes begin to sting as inexplicable tears start to burn the corner of her eyes.

"_Get a grip. Take a breath."_ She tells herself, desperately gasping for some kind of resolve. Shakily, she pushes herself off of the door and walks to her bed. She feels chilled, like she'd previously been sitting under the sun and soaking up its warmth, only to have someone come along and turn it off. _"It's not like I have any right to be... jealous. I can't believe i'm jealous." _With a hard swallow, Brooke collapses face down onto her bed. She lies there for a minute, listening to the quiet, straining to hear sounds from the next room even though she's not entirely sure she wants to hear any. None are forthcoming, so she curls her legs upwards and throws an arm over her head to block out the light coming in through the window. _"When the hell did this start? Why didn't she come talk to me about it? No, I wouldn't have enjoyed listening to it, but I thought we talked about stuff now. I talk about stuff with her..."_ Brooke's sigh hitches at the end, becoming more of a whimper. The image of them sitting together becomes twisted, until it turns into Sam sprawled atop a beaming Harrison, her hand resting nonchalantly under his shirt, their eyes reluctantly breaking the loving gaze they shared to turn and look at her like she was a bothersome intruder. And suddenly, Brooke's unshed tears turn angry, pooling in her eyes and spilling over, as though urgent to flood onto some metaphorical battlefield. _"Screw Sam. If her affections are that fleeting, he can have her."_ She screws her eyes closed and cradles her head tighter with her arm. _"God, I'm so stupid... crying over someone I never had in the first place. Not really. But maybe if I'd just said something..." _She cuts the thought through its middle, ending it before it can finish. She knew that kind of thinking was pointless, especially now.

Before, those thoughts had almost broken her. The idea that she could have everything she wanted if she would just speak up. If she'd just tell Sam the truth. Because she wants Sam so much, knows that she could have her if she'd just tell the other girl how she feels, that Sam would leap into her arms. But she's so afraid of losing everything she's built and everyone around her, that she can't speak up. And now it looks like she won't have to.

Minutes pass as she lies there, still curled but slowly regaining her senses. The flow of tears eventually ebbs, leaving her cheeks stained but the redness of her eyes slowly diminishes. After a while, Brooke sits and then moves to inspect herself in the vanity mirror. She hefts a heavy sigh and yanks a Kleenex from the box sitting on the table, rubbing at her cheeks to remove the makeup stains. She stares at herself once she's finished, and sniffs.

"_Pathetic."_ The longer she stares, the angrier she becomes. At herself, at Sam, and with a healthy amount focused on Harrison. _"Whatever. If I'm that easy to get over, I'll just put Sam where she belongs. As the back of my mind."_ And even though her reflection is the picture of resolve, the sadness in Brooke's hazel eyes is a blatant betrayal of her true feelings. For the moment though, she chooses to ignore it.

**********

Brooke has very few clothes she can describe as 'comfortable'. Most of her closet consists of form fitting garments that have appeared on various 'top ten' fashion lists in the last month. She can count the number of things she owns that haven't. A pair of pyjamas her father bought her for her last birthday. They were made of flannel and covered in depictions of fluffy sheep jumping over fences, and Nicole had scoffed in distaste. Brooke had shunned them once out of earshot of her father, but that night had sighed happily when she'd worn those and left her tighter fitting, skimpier silk ones in the drawer. Other than that, a pair of sweats and a baggy, grey wool cardigan that had definitely seen better days. It had belonged to her grandmother, and she'd taken it from her room at the home when they'd cleared it out after her funeral. She hadn't washed it and every now and then she would catch the scent of her grandmother's perfume that still lingered within the wool. That, along with the bottoms belonging to the sheep pyjamas is what she wears now, curled up on her bed, glasses perched on her nose as she stares at the words of the book she holds. She is fairly certain she hasn't turned a page in over five minutes. Her eyes are glossy, unfocused, seeing an image that isn't there, but still managing to taunt her.

She has to jump on the impulse to look up and tackle it to the floor when she hears a knock and the clicking sound of a handle being pulled down. She clenches her jaw, able to see Sam's head poking around the edge of the door in her peripheral vision. Feels Sam's eyes rove over her as she stands silently, waiting for her to look up. Something she has no control over is pulling at her though, forcing her eyes upwards to rest on the reporter, and when she sees the familiar and vaguely hidden glint in Sam's own, the hurt she felt earlier is stabbing at her again. Her gaze falls back to her book.

"What?" The word slips icily off her tongue, stinging it as it twirls through the air and, she's sure, knifes Sam in the heart. _"Whatever. Her heart is more steely than I thought it was." _

"Sorry about earlier with Harrison. You didn't have to leave though." Despite the verbal abuse, Sam is making her way into the room.

"_Oh god, spare me."_ Is what she wants to say, but instead she scoffs, fingers gripping the book edges in agitation. "I didn't want to interrupt."

"What? You weren't in-" Brooke doesn't want to hear excuses, doesn't want to hear Sam mention his name again. Doesn't want to see or hear any lingering glimmer of affection. She doesn't want to have salt rubbed in the wound.

"Was there something you wanted, Sam? I'm kinda busy." It surprises her, how easily she can slip back into the skin of the popular bitch she used to wear. It doesn't feel cozy or warm, but it feels safe and she feels secure hidden within it. She can feel that same 'something', that leech, pulling at her, wanting her gaze on something other than the book, but she strains against it.

"Was there something **you** wanted?" Old adrenaline rises in Brooke at the long dormant cold and annoyed biting tone that laces Sam's words. "Or did you just feel like barging into my room unannounced?" She feels her entire body flinch, and hopes Sam didn't see it. There's a millisecond where she feels herself begin to crumble, but then the image of them looking happy and content floods her mind again.

"Get a lock." Brooke's fingers tremble slightly as she turns the page. Something is screaming at her, like something always seems to be screaming at her, but she can't stop. "And no, there wasn't."

"Fine." She isn't sure, but the thinks the word is shaky as it falls from Sam's lips. There's a slight pause and Brooke holds her breath, half expecting Sam to ask her why she's being such a bitch. "Whatever." But she doesn't. She keeps her eyes on the book even as she hears Sam leaving, even when the doors slam and rattle on their hinges. Even as her breath is pulled out of her, like barbed wire being drawn up out of her throat, and a tear breaks free and lands, wetting the page.

**********

She wakes abruptly from a dream that vanishes as soon as her eyes open, lifting a hand to rub away the remnants of sleep and reaching over to turn her alarm clock so she can see it. It's a moment before she remembers everything and once she does, she can't find a reason to get out of bed.

"_I don't want to see her happy and gushy over him. I don't give a damn if that's selfish."_ The simple truth of the matter is that Brooke would rather see Sam miserable and pining over her, and she isn't sure how to digest that kind of implication. What kind of person does that make her? That she could stand by and watch someone she loves, because she had stopped trying to deny that word a long time ago, try so hard to hide feelings that were destroying her while simultaneously being the only thing that brought a smile to her face. _"Had been the only thing, then Harrison snuck in and filled that spot."_ The truth is, Brooke likes being the thing that makes Sam smile, despite the crappy side effects. She likes being the thing that makes her blush, makes her laugh. Now Harrison would be getting all the glory, and Brooke will probably be tossed aside.

With anger once more steadily rising in her, Brooke throws the covers back and forces herself out of bed, refusing to let someone's fleeting love get the better of her again. Part of her knows she's overreacting. Realises that she has no right to be angry, not really. Part of her knows how heinous it is to begrudge someone moving on, thinking they don't have a chance with you, and you feeling hurt because your pride doesn't like the sting the slap leaves. Knows that Sam has probably been hurting for a long time, can only imagine just how much a love you think is unrequited can hurt, and has finally seen and accepted what's been in front of her the whole time. Because Brooke isn't blind, nor is she stupid, and she's seen how Harrison looks at Sam. It's the same way he's looked at her. She knows that if she were a decent human being, she'd be happy for Sam. She'd keep pretending and things could go on like they had been, with them as friends and nothing more.

But Brooke's heart is hurting, screaming its betrayal in her ears until the thoughts vibrate and become blurred by the deafening pitch.

The doors belonging to the bathroom cabinet where the towels are kept are closed with slightly more force than normal. Brooke drops the towel onto the closed lid of the toilet seat and moves to the sink to brush her teeth. She stares unblinking at her reflection as she numbly jerks the toothbrush up and down and left to right, with little thought behind her actions. She turns the tap, rinsing it off, mind elsewhere and eyes still on herself. She turns away to undress, folding her clothes and placing them in an empty space beside her sink. Briefly, images of them arguing over it fill her mind, but she frowns and shakes her head to rid herself of them, turning to open the shower door and twist the handle all the way to the right until the water is almost boiling.

**********

Her feet drag as she shuffles into the kitchen, showered and dressed but still feeling groggy after a night during which she saw hours pass between bouts of sleep. She grabs a box of cereal, not giving much attention to which, and a bowl to pour it in, before grabbing the milk and a spoon and moving to sit at the island. Wanting a distraction, she pulls a magazine, probably left there by Jane, towards her and flips it open to a random page.

Brooke doesn't hear her, but she senses Sam as soon as she descends into the kitchen. Her hand, bringing another spoonful to her lips, freezes halfway, and her eyes lift hesitantly to make sure it isn't her dad or the reporter's mom. Their eyes meet for all of a second before Brooke's are pulled away by her stomach dropping to her feet, as though they were connected by an invisible thread, and she forces the food into her mouth even though her appetite is gone. Eyes on the magazine again, Brooke has become blind to the candid shots of celebrities before her, seeing only the image of a thoroughly sleep-dishevelled brunette and thinking how it redefined the word 'adorable'. Even as she tells herself not to, the blonde risks a glance upward and watches Sam run her fingers through her messy hair, feeling a pain in her chest. Thoughts centered around how adorable her housemate looks in her sleep-rumpled attire and mussed hair slip through her mind, searing a path that will remain long after they're gone. Sam moves to the fridge and grabs an apple, and Brooke almost jumps out of her seat when the phone rings. Her eyes snap back to the magazine and she listens as the ringing dies off and Sam's dull-sounding 'hello' breaks the silence.

"What if it hadn't been me who answered?" Sam's voice is lighter now as she questions the person on the other end, and even before she conscious of it, Brooke has 'please don't be Harrison' on repeat inside her head. She lifts her eyes again, pretending to look at the clock before seeing Sam's attention elsewhere and shifting hers to the still sleepy-looking girl. She sees Sam's expression shift from gloomy to flattered and feels another blade of rejection stab into her back at her next words. "Sigh, my very own stalker." Her heart is screaming again, blood rushing in her ears. Sam lifts the apple to her lips and Brooke's eyes are fixed on perfect lips as she takes a bite. "Uh… No. It um… I can't really-" She drops her spoon, feeling her stomach roll and clench. "Yeah. Hold on." And then Sam is walking past her, vacating to the laundry room. Out of earshot.

Suddenly, as though she's just realised she's been suffocating for the last thirty seconds and now is free to breathe again, Brooke starts dragging in deep lungfuls of air.

"_I'm not going to be able to do this."_ The thought hits her like a smack to the face. _"It's going to kill me. I can't fake being okay with this."_ And she wonders what the repercussions of that are going to be. She remembers how their fighting almost tore their parents apart and doesn't want to do that to them again. Brooke wants to be someone who's better than being angry and spiteful because they're jealous.

She hears Sam squeal Harrison's name, hears her laugh at something he's said, and knows she's **not **better than that. Won't ever be, not matter how much she wishes it. Her breath catches as she hears the door open, just in time for her to clearly hear his name squealed a second time and Sam warning him to stop it. The brunette strides past her, not sparing her a second glance.

"Oh my god, do you like, spend your entire out of school existence watching through your window?" Brooke's stomach rolls again and she feels sick. She doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to know what goes on behind closed doors. "You're like a dirty old man." Sam's teasingly jovial words twist at Brooke's insides until they are ravaged by them, creating gaps for the anger to rise up through again. She clears her throat, an act that conveys annoyance, and only feels empty when Sam does nothing but move out of her line of sight and into the hallway beyond the kitchen. "But as much as this conversation is entertaining-"

"_Oh for god's sake…" _Brooke's fingers are tight on the magazine pages as she turns it, accidentally ripping it from the seam.

"Which ones?" She wants to stop listening, she wants the conversation to be over so she can go back to ignoring Sam. It might be painful, but it was easier than this. "Oh no, no shorts."

"_I am __**not **__going to sit here while they discuss what Sam is wearing. I feel like I'm listening in on phone sex. Screw this." _She stands, lucky the stool doesn't crash to the floor with the sharpness of her anger-fuelled movements, but only makes it to the centre step before Sam speaks again.

"Goodbye, Mister John. I leave you to your window seat of pervitutde." Brooke grits her teeth as she pauses with her hand on the door knob, squeezing it until her knuckles turn white and she's sure she feels the metal shift beneath her fingers. With unnecessary force, she throws open the door and slams it behind her. Not caring that Sam probably heard, hoping she did.

Miserable, angry and hurting, she pulls back the covers of her bed and crawls beneath them, tugging them up until they cover her head. Shielding her from the sunlight and desperately trying to block out reality.


	13. Conversation

Conversation

* * *

It had already been a long day when she got the call at lunchtime.

"Honey, if you aren't busy tonight, Mike and I were thinking of taking you girls out for a family dinner. How does that sound?" Sam's eyes had closed and Jane clearly heard the sigh leave her daughter's lip. "We were thinking Chinese food." She'd said in a sing song voice, hoping the mention of the brunette's favourite comfort food would sway her.

"That sounds really awesome Mom, but I'm not feeling too hot…" Sam had trailed off, feeling guilty even as the words left her, but the last thing she wanted to do was spend her evening sitting across from Brooke, unable to stop herself from trying to catch hazel eyes with her own, and having the blonde blatantly ignore her and shoot cold glares in her direction.

"Oh." The disappointment in her mom's voice had only made it worse. She hates making her sad. Maybe she could endure one night of pure torture.

"But as long as you guys aren't offended if I don't eat, I think I can stomach smelling the food."

"Thank you, Sam."

Now, she stands in the bathroom, trying to smooth down her curled hair with some expensive serum she had been assured would make it smooth and shiny, but in actual fact seems to work in the same vein as grease. Finally giving up, Sam tosses the small container that cost more than the accumulated total of her last batch of toiletries under her sink.

"Before you moved in, I kept the bathroom looking less like it belonged to the average teenage slob, and I'd love it if you could do the courtesy of at least respecting that." Brooke's words bite into her like the new needle-teeth of a kitten. The blonde moves to the mirror to tend to her own hair and Sam glares daggers into the back of her head, but Brooke doesn't even glance at her.

"God forbid I put something back where it doesn't belong." Sam huffs, folding her arms across her chest and pressing her tongue into her cheek. "This, seriously, coming from the girl who puts empty milk cartons back into the fridge?" Brooke presses her hands flat against the cool surface either side of the sink and her eyes lift to pin Sam to the spot.

"Can you leave? I need to actually take time on my appearance." Sam winces at the words but manages to cover it by turning and storming out of the room.

As soon as the words had left Brooke's lips, the intended meaning behind it split and spun off into different directions. Was it supposed to be an insult or a weird compliment that came out sounding like an insult? Either way, Brooke realises it was perhaps a step too far because Sam obviously took it the worst way possible. She hangs her head and her eyes move to stare at her reflection.

"_Damn it, Brooke. What the hell is wrong with you?"_ The question is rhetorical and she's thankful for that, because she's tired of the answer beating her over the head.

**********

The restaurant is fancy. It's one of those upscale Chinese places with islands scattered in between the regular seating that have those hotplates and their very own chef, and they cook everything right there in front of you. Tonight, they are in the regular seats, but even they are the kind of regular that is fancier than the majority of 'nice' booths they've been at some places.

"Wow honey, this place is great." Jane says, smiling widely at her husband-to-be as he pulls a chair out for her to sit in and then moves to take the one across from her. Brooke and Sam slide into the remaining chairs on opposite sides of the table.

"Ken at work recommended it. Said it was pretty great." He returns her smile and she opens a menu to peruse.

"Well, tell Ken I said thank you." Silence falls over the table as everyone makes their meal choices. Brooke finishes first, closing the menu with a loud snap that draws Sam's eyes up to glance at her over the top of her own leatherette booklet. Brooke has an 'I dare you to say something' look on her face that forces dark eyes back down. Sam has the sinking feeling that this was a very bad idea.

"Is everyone ready?" Their waiter is an overly cheerful, well dressed twenty-something, and he smiles at them as he takes their food and drink orders, then collects their menus and disappears behind a cloud of steam given off by the hotplate on the island behind them.

"So, Brooke," Jane begins, and Brooke resists the urge to sigh and slouch down in her seat. It's not that she doesn't want to talk to Jane, she just doesn't want to talk at all. "How's cheerleading going?" The blonde plasters on a fake smile and turns her attention to the older woman.

"Great. We've been working on a routine that's really different to what we usually do and I think we finally mastered it."

"That's great, honey." This from her dad, smiling at her from her left. She returns it, hoping the topic and any attention on her will be dropped. "And Sam, how's the paper?"

"Also great." Sam state, a little too enthusiastically. "Harrison and I rented the video equipment again and interviewed some people at the mall about the pressures, or lack there of, placed on them by the media. I'm hoping it'll bring to light the issues photoshopping people to perfection causes."

"That's a very admirable subject, Sam." Brooke knows her dad is speaking, but all she hears is Harrison's name leaving Sam's lips, over and over again.

"Yeah, a lot of good it'll do." Sam's eyes snap to her and once again Brooke has the feeling she's gone too far.

"Meaning?" The word is snappish and laced with annoyance. Brooke deflates under the brunette's harsh glare.

"I just don't think a high school news paper is going to attract the needed amount of attention for something like that." Because Brooke knows all about feeling inadequate, and she watches Sam's shoulders slump slightly, and wonders if she just remembered that.

Conversation moves from one thing to another, with Mike and Jane supplying most of it and Sam and Brooke 'hmm'ing and nodding in all the right places, keeping enough attention on the words being spoken to know when they need to elaborate on an answer.

"How's Harrison these days, Sam? Are he and his mom…" Jane trails off as their waiter returns with their food and drinks and places the dishes in front of the appropriate people.

"They're good." Sam nods, taking a sip from her glass. "Better than before, I think."

"Yeah, well, I know I've always thought sharing things can bring people closer together." Brooke pipes up, eyes on her cutlery as she unrolls the knife, fork and spoon from the fancy red napkin. Jane doesn't seem to notice anything off about the way Brooke says it, neither does Mike, but Sam hears the underlying growl and bristles at it. Winded after the cold shoulder had been driven into her stomach the night before, and taut and tired after spending the day wondering what she'd done and hoping Harrison had been right in saying that no one could stay mad at Sam for long, that Brooke was probably just having a mood swing, there's only so much she can take before she snaps.

"Me too." Sam says slowly, eyes fixed on Brooke, waiting for her to say something else.

"I'm glad. I was worried for a while." Jane said with a sigh and a smile of relief. "I'd hate to see something like that tear apart a family." At that, Brooke does look up, but Sam has moved her gaze to her mother.

"Yeah." The brunette says softly, and Brooke feels like the biggest bitch in the world. "Harrison's a good guy. He's just hot headed." But then Sam says his name with such affection in her voice, it makes the blonde's skin crawl.

"It's nice you and he are such **good friends**." And those words are said with so much innuendo, Sam can practically see the air quotes on either side of them. Dark eyebrows are pulled into a frown as their eyes finally meet.

"Thanks. He means a lot to me." Sam says, still speaking slowly and evenly, unsure as to why Brooke has suddenly decided to speak to her and why she feels like she's missed a huge chunk of this conversation. There's a quiet pause as everyone begins to eat, Mike voicing his opinions of the food in loud, satisfied noises of appreciation.

"This is good." He says, not looking up from his food. Jane's eyes, however, are flitting back and forth between her daughter and the girl who is becoming as close to her own as possible without the genetic connection with each passing day.

"I'm surprised you decided to grace us with your presence, Sam." Brooke says, all smiles on the surface, but with seething ire rippling beneath her skin. Sam's eyes narrow ever so slightly at the corners, bringing her brow down even as she offers a too-sweet smile of her own. And while Sam might have no idea why Brooke is being so bitchy, she's not going to sit there and take it.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Still smiling, voice airy, appearing as one of a family of four enjoying a night out together to any onlookers. Brooke even lifts her fork to her mouth to sample a mouthful of food before speaking again, projecting an image of amiable chatter. And Jane, confusion and unease quickly growing, can only watch for the time being, unsure of exactly what is going on.

"I just figured you'd have better things to do than have a boring family dinner with me, Dad and Jane." Brooke's smile is slowly sliding into a sneer.

"I thought you loved Chinese food." Mike comments, frowning at Sam and then looking around at the spinning tables and servers behind their hot plates, spinning meat into the air before pressing it against the scorching surface. "What's not to love about this place?" He sounds offended. Neither of them have heard him.

"Well, Brooke," Sam begins dangerously, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear before resting her elbows on the table, her chin on her hands, and shooting the blonde across from her a look that could peel the paint from the walls. "Since you seem to know more about me and my extracurricular activates than I do, how about you enlighten me by telling me what I should be doing?"

"Funny." All traces of smiles and good humour are gone from Brooke's face. "I didn't know rollicking in the backseat of your car with Harrison was considered an extracurricular activity."

"Brooke!" Mike yelps, the comment taking him completely off guard as he had been oblivious to the escalating situation, and Sam's expression turns cold, all emotion fleeing from it. And in that moment, the brunette thinks she sees everything so clearly, she doesn't even care about the untruths Brooke's words implied.

"Jealous?" She shoots back, feeling a physical pain tear through her chest, hot on the tail of the surge of dark joy that rose when she saw Brooke wince out her words. Blood rises to the blonde's cheeks and she fights the urge to cry and scream and slap Sam. Because yes, she's more jealous than she's ever been in her life. But Sam has no idea why.

And Sam wants to cry and pull her own hair out, because Harrison is her best friend and she doesn't want to hate him because the person she loves, loves him instead. It's too much for Sam. She can't handle being hurt by Brooke, because she knows she'll keep coming back for more. That the hope will always be there, even when obvious evidence to the contrary jumps up to kick her when she's down like this. No matter what she feels, no matter how wrong she thinks some of the things she's done have been, she knows she doesn't deserve that.

"Girls!" Jane's low hiss breaks the death glare thickening the air around them. "What is wrong with you two?" She glances between them, finally stopping on Sam and frowning. "Sam, are you and Harrison-?"

"No!" Sam all but shrieks, eyes wide with indignation and hands held splayed and apart, silently asking where the heck this assumption had come from. Her mother raises an eyebrow at her. "We're not! I'm not! Harrison and I aren't anything! We're friends!" Brooke makes the mistake of scoffing and Sam's head snaps in her direction. "Shut up, Brooke! I am **so **sick of you!" Any response the cheerleader was preparing dies on her tongue at Sam's words. She feels her heart sink, the adrenaline and anger drain from her, and pushes her chair back to stand. Head down, she retreats quickly from the table, eyes hot, and unsure if the voice she can hear belong to the table she just left and the ones around her.

"Sam, what is-?" Jane begins, but Sam mimics Brooke's moments and gets to her feet too.

"I'll be right back." She says stiffly, throwing her napkin down beside her plate, and sets off after Brooke. Mike and Jane's eyes meet.

"I don't want to have to pay for the cost of cleaning blood out of the carpet by washing dishes." He confesses with a worried smile.

"If they're not back out here in fifteen minutes, we'll consider it over and dine and ditch." Jane raises both her eyebrows and smiles only slightly unsurely. Silently, they return to their food.

Sam see Brooke's hair disappear into the bathroom and quickens her pace. Her palm makes a loud slapping noise when it connects with the door, stopping it from closing and throwing it back open. Brooke spins, heartbeat stumbling as she's faced with an ire-riddled Sam, all fiercely frowning and fire in her eyes.

"What the **hell** is wrong with you, Brooke?" She yells, not stopping until she has Brooke pressed against the wall beside the large, frosted glass window, between the stalls and the sinks.

"Step the hell back, Sam." The blonde cautions, her voice carrying more anger and warning than she feels she's ready to back up. But if she's pushed, she knows she'll find the resources. They're too close and their emotions are too high and **something** is going to happen if one of them can't calm down. She knows this, she sees it happening like she's suddenly clairvoyant, but she can't stop it. When Sam doesn't move, she lifts a hand to the brunette's shoulder and pushes her. "Step **back**." Sam's eyes flare and her own hand snaps up to knock Brooke's aside.

"Not until you tell me why you've been such a bitch." And even though the anger is still plastered on Sam's face, her expression is placated. Brooke's entire body has gone rigid. Being pulled in two different directions, conflicted, every nerve in her body freezes. Sam is so close Brooke can smell the lingering scent of her shampoo, and it's doing things to her that will undoubtedly get her into trouble. So, forced into choosing between giving into anger and to that pesky little 'L' word, Brooke falls back into reliable, safe old habits.

"You can talk." She snaps, straightening her back so she stands taller over the other girl. "I haven't been fighting with myself." Sam's eyes widen in annoyed disbelief.

"I'm not the one who started this!" She yells and throws her hands up into the air in frustration, finally turning away from Brooke.

"Like hell you didn't, Sam." Brooke's voice is snarling, and in the back of her mind a meek voice is telling her to calm down, but she's not in control anymore. "**You** were the one who suddenly decided I wasn't good enough to talk to about stuff anymore." Sam spins back to face her, a complete lack of understanding masking her face.

"What the hell are you talking about?" And the blonde can hear the pleading in her voice, and suddenly she's confused. Because if appearances are anything to go back, Sam looks like she genuinely has no idea what Brooke is referring to. But, if their past has taught the cheerleader anything, it's that Sam can be a very convincing liar.

"Harrison." His name drips from Brooke's lips coated in venom, as though the word itself is poisonous. Sam stares at her, pushing the flaring jealousy down.

"What about him?" Somehow, she gets the question through her clenched jaw, each word said slow and with a slight pause before the next.

"Don't play dumb, Sam. I'm not blind."

"So, just crazy then?" Sam asks with raises eyebrows, folding her arms across her chest. "Brooke, I have no idea what you're talking about." But then her eyebrows drop and comprehension makes her eyes roll. "Were you serious about what you said at the table? About me and Harrison?" Brooke mimics her actions, wrapping her arms around her torso.

"I saw you guys, in your room. Like I said, I'm not blind."

"You might not be blind, Brooke." Sam begins, lifting a hand to tiredly brush her hair out of her face. "But you definitely have some kind of vision impairment, because I was there too and there was nothing going on that even remotely looked like rollicking." Brooke's cheeks colour at the word, suddenly feeling stupid and really guilty for what she'd said.

"But you guys were all..." She gestures with her hand. "Snuggley."

"I was upset. Harrison was being a good **friend** and comforting me. We're not together in any way that could be considered even remotely conjugal." Sam is staring at Brooke again, and the blonde shifts nervously under her scrutiny. Now she is really starting to feel stupid. "Is that seriously what this has been about? You were jealous?" Blonde hair swings wildly as Brooke's head snaps back up. The burning heat of panic shoots along her spine and instantly spreads a thin sheen of sweat along her entire body.

"W-what?" She stutters. Brooke McQueen does not stutter. Sam doesn't bother asking again, she knows Brooke heard her. "No, I'm not jealous!" Her pitch, bolstered by the panic, is punched up a few octaves. She takes a deep breath and repeats herself more calmly, more convincingly. "I'm not jealous. I've just been in a bad mood." The fifty foot high guilt wave hits her full force and Sam's eyes, unblinking, are starting to burn a hole right through her.

"That wasn't a bad mood you were stuck in Brooke, it was a goddamn ice age." Brooke knows she deserves to be yelled at, feels like she deserves a lot more than that, but the teeth of guilt gnawing and ripping at the pit of her stomach are doing a pretty good job of making her feel like crap, and she's never much enjoyed Sam being mad at her. It sucks even more when she's upset because of her.

"I know." She replies, timidly.

"Look, if you want Harrison you should have said something. This whole silent, pole stuck up your ass treatment has been giving me a headache." She pauses, feeling vulnerable about her next words but feeling as though they need to be said. "And it hurts."

"I don't!" Brooke all but explodes, shaking her head so vigorously, Sam is surprised her teeth don't rattle. "I'm not interested in Harrison." Sam's arms fly from their position wrapped around her and into the air in exasperation.

"Then **why**-"

'I mean, I **was** jealous, yes." Brooke finally admits, feeling the weight on her chest lessening. "But not of Harrison." Sam's head jerks backwards and she frowns, looking at Brooke with confusion and a glimmer of hope that makes the blonde's heart ache. She realises how her words are being taken, how close to the truth they are. "Not like that." She amends quickly and sees Sam's posture relax slightly. "I just, I saw you guys, and I assumed and-"

"You **know** what they say about people who assume, right?" Sam asks, deadpan, and Brooke answers by shifting her weight and cocking her hip to the side.

"Okay, do you want an explanation or do you just want to be a smart ass? 'Cause I can leave you here with your reflection if it's the latter." Sam remains silent, a wave of her hand indicating she would like Brooke to continue.

"I saw you guys and assumed you were dating, and I got angry."

"Why?" The aspiring reporter just can't help but interrupt.

"Because I thought he'd take my place!" Brooke snaps, annoyed by the interruptions and frustrated by having to admit her weakness. In the silence that follows, she realises that, once again, she's said too much. That her words are too close to the truth for comfort. Big brown eyes are staring at her, the fog of confusion lifted but not completely. Brooke wants to leave it there, let her words hang and for Sam to make sense of them. All Sam has to do is question their meaning, to ask her what she means, and Brooke knows she'll crumble.

"What do-"

"He'd be your new confidant." But the panic that rises forces the words from her. "We wouldn't be as close anymore, because he'd be the person you'd go to with everything. Our friendship would be secondary and I was afraid I'd lose... that." She stumbles over the last word, almost saying more than she means to, almost saying 'you' instead of 'that'. Her breathing is harsh, not from a threatening onslaught of tears, but the pounding heartbeat she can feel in her hands. Sam's eyes have softened, hostility kneeling before an emotion so strong it can overpower anything. Brooke knows its name, but she's afraid to speak it. But she doesn't need too. Looking at Sam, she knows the worst is over. She knows her words, while the truth, still not the whole of it, have redeemed her actions, or at least set her on the path that will lead her to do so.

"Brooke..." But there's still a tinge of frustration lingering in her voice. She lifts a hand to rub at her forehead and takes a step closer to Brooke. "You're the most infuriating person I have **ever** met." Brooke arcs an eyebrow and a wry smile curls her lips.

"Have you met you?" Sam rolls her eyes, poking the inside of her cheek with her tongue. Brooke's smile changes from teasing to repentant. "I'm sorry." Then she frowns a little and it changes back. "About being a bitch, not about the burn, because that was pretty good."

"You're lucky I'm so gracious and forgiving." The scoff was almost out before Brooke caught it and though better.

"I know." And she did. She'd almost ruined everything with her harsh words and cold shoulders, and Sam had forgiven her. Though she knew her being gracious and forgiving wasn't all of it. Brooke knew that Sam's ability to just let everything she'd done go, something that would have never happened in the early days of the household merging, was thanks in large part to that word she was afraid to speak.

* * *

Both Mike and Jane had breathed a not so subtle sigh of relief when they'd returned to the table mercilessly void of each other's blood. They'd sat down, smiled at their respective parents, and then gone back to enjoying their meals. And that had been it. Nothing more was said about the outburst, no questions were asked, and other than the sigh of relief, there was no indication that anything had ever gone awry.

Sure, once they got home, Jane had made some excuse to get Sam alone in the laundry room and had grilled her about her so-called relations with Harrison. That had been fun. Sam was confident though that she'd finally, after a good half hour, convinced her mom that nothing even remotely sexual was going on between her and Harrison. Words to the effect of, 'he's like my brother, that's gross' had almost passed her lips, before the sound of Brooke laughing at something her father had said in the next room stop them cold.

Honestly, the evening had turned out better than Sam had thought it would. Which was saying a lot.

Finally escaping her mother, Sam had disappeared into the sanctuary of her bedroom, quickly changed into her pyjamas, and collapsed on her bed to watch brain-numbing TV in the dark. Which is where she is when a tentative knock reaches her ears.

"Still here, Mom." Sam grins, only semi-annoyed, eyes not leaving the screen.

"Not Mom." She doesn't know why, but she's surprised to hear Brooke's voice. Maybe it's because, even though she's thankful, she's not quite used to them being back on speaking terms. It might have only lasted a day, but it had felt like her own private, hellish eternity. Or maybe it's the simple fact that she's not used to Brooke knocking and actually waiting for a response. Although, after the last time, maybe it would be awhile before Brooke was back to doing that.

The door opens with a gentle push of the blonde's hand and Sam's head turns to find her leaning against the doorway, two bowls in her hands.

"I made jello." Brooke says, taking a few seconds to covertly take in the reporter's form illuminated in the ethereal blue glow of the television set and Sam raises an eyebrow, thinking silently to herself that the bowls might as well have makeshift flags made from toothpicks and white paper sticking out of them.

"Is it green?" She sees Brooke grin and nod and, ignoring the flipping of her stomach, pats the vacant spot beside her on the bed. The cheerleader enters, sliding up next to her housemate and handing over a bowl of the radioactive-looking goo, settling her back against the headboard.

"Peace offering." She says by way of explanation. Sam throws a quizzical look her way.

"I thought we did that already." Brooke shrugs.

"I felt guilty." Sam excepts the gesture and the spoon Brooke is offering her.

"You owe me big time, by the way." The blonde feels a huge amount of gratitude at the other girl's change of subject, even if she should probably feel guilty about this too. "My mom would **not** let the Harrison thing go. I'm pretty sure she half expects me to have snuck out and into the backseat of his non-existent car. I'm honestly surprised she hasn't come to check on me yet. Thanks for that." Sam just says it in a way that makes her think she **doesn't** really need to feel guilty about it. Brooke smiles, but has the good decency to blush.

"Sorry." And she means it.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, eating the jello and paying a moderate amount of attention to the TV, the leftovers being pushed in the direction of the other girl. The commercials end and Brooke's eyebrows shoot to her hairline.

"You're watching Jerry Springer?" She asks, an amused smile lighting her face in a way that makes Sam's cheeks burn a little. She's glad she can maybe blame it on embarrassment at being caught watching a trashy trailer park brawl being disguised as a talk show.

"It's about the only thing left that can make my life appear even remotely normal." Sam confessed with a smirk and the blonde let out a belly laugh. Feeling her blood sing at the sound, Sam found herself continuing. "Seriously. With everything that goes on at school, our parents..." _Being in love with my step-sister-to-be._ "We'd be a shoe in for guests of the year. I'm considering calling." Brooke grins and settles back against Sam's pillows, placing the now empty jello bowl on the nightstand.

"Mary Cherry would scar them."

"Yeah, I don't think they have enough security guards to handle her. Or Satan for that matter."

"Sam..." Brooke's tone is warning, but playful, and Sam rolls her eyes.

"Sorry, sorry. Nicole." The name rolls of her tongue sarcastically, but Brooke lets it go. She's not sure she really cares all that much anymore.

"So what's going on?" Brookes asks again, after a pause of silence. She watches the last spoonful of jello be lifted from the bowl and slip between the reporters lips. She watches her swallow and her lips part to draw in a breath before she speaks. She feels heat rush up along the back on her neck. Sam shifts until she's half on her side looking at Brooke, legs bent at the knee and pulled close to her, head propped up with her hand.

"Mr male pattern baldness has been cheating on his wife with lady mcteeth-missing. He says it's because she only has one leg." Sam explains and Brooke frowns, confused.

"His wife?"

"The mistress."

"But why would he use that as his reasoning?"

"I don't think you really want me to answer that." After a few seconds, Brooke makes a face.

"Oh ew." The brunette shrugs.

"How do you think they stay on the air? Each guest has to exceed, or at the very least meet the expectations of the last." Brooke doesn't respond and they fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the drama unfold.

"I don't get that."

"What, the leg thing? It's 'cause-"

"No!" Brooke thrusts a hand up in the air. "I'm begging you not to explain it to me. Some things just shouldn't be verbalised." Sam chuckles, batting at the blonde's hand to get her to lower it. "I mean the cheating thing. You've got a guy who isn't… particularly attractive, and he found someone who loved him for him and they got married. Then poof, ten years down the line, some one-legged hussy comes along, flashing her prosthetic and it's like he doesn't give a rats ass about her feelings. I know statistics have been telling us for years, but is marriage really doomed to fail? Can no one stay in love for five minutes without completely ruining it?" She can feel Sam's eyes on her, burning a hole, but she's flipped some kind of switch and there's no stopping her until her tirade had run its course. "You get married because you love somebody. I can't understand how someone who claims to love someone else can go and hurt them in what's probably the worst way possible. You commit yourself, body and soul to that person. To just go and share that with someone else, or leave because it's too much effort to stay… I don't get it."

"Maybe…" Sam begins after a long pause of silence. "Maybe feelings just change. Maybe it's not something anyone can stop. They don't want to have feelings for someone else, but they can't help it." Sam's gaze is on something behind Brooke that she can't see, and she's thankful for that, because something is telling her that Sam isn't talking about Jerry Springer anymore and suddenly she's finding difficult to draw steady breaths. "They're inexplicably pulled to that person, even though they know that ultimately someone's going to end up getting hurt." At that, Sam seems to come back to herself. Her eyes refocus and meet Brooke's, and the blonde feels an infinite span of time pass where she can't stop thinking about kissing Sam. Because they're sitting on Sam's bed and they're so close together and she knows, for once in her life truly knows, that she wouldn't be rejected. And it's so difficult to stop herself. "And look at you and Josh. You guys seemed in love and that changed, right?" Sam's question is hesitant and Brooke can hear everything she isn't asking.

"I don't…" She trails off, not knowing what to say, and Sam's face flushes in embarrassment.

"Wow, I'm sorry. That was totally inappropriate." Sam's hand lifts to her forehead and she rubs at it worriedly.

"No! No." Brooke grins and reaches out, knowing she shouldn't but feeling that oh so familiar pull she reporter had been talking about. She gripped Sam's wrist and pulled her hand down until she was holding it in her lap. "Not inappropriate, you just kind of caught me off guard." She explains and forces herself to let Sam's had go. The brunette hesitates before she pulls it back and Brooke fights with the urge to just take hold of it again. "I thought I loved Josh, I really did. I mean I wouldn't have-" She stops abruptly, glancing at Sam in time to see the other girls eyes drop to stare at a very interesting spot on the bedspread. "I thought I loved him, until I realised I didn't. Not the same way he loved me. I made him wait a month until I let him kiss me, because it didn't feel right before then, and eventually I just let him do it because I thought he'd waited long enough. I wanted to make everything perfect… but it finally clicked that I shouldn't have to **make** things perfect. It should feel like that naturally. I guess the problem was that, even though I didn't know what I wanted then, I knew it wasn't him. And I felt so guilty, I still do, because I know I hurt him. But I couldn't string him along, knowing that wasn't what I really wanted."

"And now you do know?" Sam's attention lifts and Brooke feels all the breath in her evaporate. There's a stark, naïve hope in the dark eyes that haunt the blonde long after she's done looking into them and Brooke's insides seize because she's not sure she can give Sam a false answer when she's looking at her like that. The moment hangs, Brooke can feel its tenseness weighing on her, and she's hyper aware of how close Sam is lying next to her, that their legs are almost touching. She can feel everything bubbling in her chest, straining and clawing, attempting to leave, but then her gaze is freed from Sam's and the brunette is chuckling, dismissively. "I guess that's one of the few pros of being a teenager, right? We're allowed to not know what we want or what the hell we're doing, because we're young and..." She interrupts herself with a sigh, and the sounds pulls at Brooke. She can hear Sam's internal monologue telling herself she's stupid. "Naïve." And Brooke knows exactly what Sam is talking about.

"I think that sometimes we can know all along… and it just takes a while to get pushed to the surface. Like, it's there and you can make out the general shape of it, but you can't grab it to pull it into sharper focus. Maybe it just takes time." Sam grins, no way of knowing how close to home Brooke's words are.

"Maybe." Sam's attention falls from her and turns to the television set to find the credits of the show rolling. She watches them unseeing, her brain working quietly and quickly, and when the commercials between shows begin to run, Sam sits up and crosses her legs, reaching for the remote and shutting off the power.

Brooke swallows, because everything is silent and it's in these close, quiet moments that she most feels the urge to just blurt everything out. Her fingers fidget nervously with the hem of her shorts, bare legs stretched out before, pulling at it and smoothing out creases along the thigh that aren't there.

Her eyes are pulled upwards when she feels Sam's move and she finds the other girl kneeling, resting back on her haunches, and looking at her with a quizzical but hesitant expression.

"Do you remember when we all got locked in the Novak?" Sam already knows the answer, but she can't find another way to broach the subject without it sounding like the furthest thing possible from nonchalant.

"Mmhmm." Brooke groans in the affirmative, hand dropping from her thigh as she laughs at the memory. "Not a night I'll have the fortune of forgetting any time soon." Blonde hair slips from behind an ear as Brooke tilts her head to the side, her eyes glazing over. "I still have nightmares about a fifty-foot Mary Cherry and a bottle of Tabasco sauce." Sam lets out a snort and then lifts her hand to her mouth, looking embarrassed, but laughs anyway. Brooke grins.

"I think Carmen does too." She drops her hand to the bedspread and lowers her gaze to watch her fingers pick absently at it once more. "What did you mean when you said you'd thought about it?" And even though Sam's words and posture carry an air of nonchalance, Brooke freezes, knowing instantly what the brunette is referring to and that inside, she's so far from dispassionate, Brooke is a little surprised Sam's heart hasn't palpitated her off the bed.

"I…" And her own words have apparently deserted her, not wanting to outright lie to Sam, but unable to think of any half-truths. But the reporter speaks again, eyes still on the bed, giving Brooke an extra few seconds to recover.

"I think the general belief is that you said it to take some of the Satan-heat off Lily but-" At that, Brooke finds her voice again.

"Sammy, no. I couldn't-" She stops herself as Sam lifts her gaze and their eyes meet, realising she could. "I hate lying to make people feel better. Usually you end up caught and tangled in its web." Brooke sighs, wetting her suddenly dry lips with her tongue and tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't like being the giver of false hope." There's a pause where Brooke holds Sam's gaze, letting the moment become slightly more intense than she should. "So no. I didn't say it to make her feel better."

"Oh." Sam replies meekly, all her breath leaving her with the word. She hadn't expected the answer, but once the shock has worn off, she realises it doesn't really answer her question at all. Her eyes fall back to the quilt as her fingers return to picking at the invisible lint apparently covering it. "Then why'd you say it?"

With Sam's attention fully focused on the bedspread, Brooke allows her eyes to widen to the size of saucers in absolute terror, before she actually takes a second or two to think, and realises that she doesn't have a whole lot to lose by telling this secret.

"Because it was the truth and I didn't want Lily to feel like she was a freak or something if I could help it." She pauses, thinking back to that conversation, her confession, and how Nicole had looked at her. "But I don't think anyone other than you or Nicole really paid attention, and she didn't take me seriously." Sam glances up at her and Brooke feels a familiar heat wash through her. A heat that always accompanies her lose of control, that blurs the lines between right and wrong. Between teasing and leaving well enough alone. She dips her head, looking at Sam through her lashes, dazing the brunette a little. "I don't think you did either, did you Sam?" Brooke watches, a little mesmerized herself as Sam blushes when she realises she's staring at the blonde and taking too long to answer.

"No, if I'm honest I didn't."

"Why?" Brooke's emotions have suddenly avalanched, thoughts of teasing being crushed beneath the heavy weight of Sam hitting a nerve. "Perfect, popular Brooke couldn't possibly have such thoughts?" Because it's too close to home. Knows that her social status and homecoming queen image has doomed her, practically forced people into thinking her incapable of such thoughts. They hold her up on a perfect, heterosexual pedestal, and she has no one to blame but herself. Even Sam. But Sam at least wishes things were different, entertains the idea of Brooke digging girls before brushing it off.

"_I was afraid it would give me that false hope you were talking about if it were true."_ But then the end half of Brooke's question filters through Sam's brain, which sparks and slows, and while that is what she's thinking, what leaves her lips is an embarrassing, "What kind of thoughts?" And it's Brooke's turn to blush. She laughs, embarrassed, and looks down at her hands as her fingers interlock. Sam is looking at her with unabashed curiosity and she knows exactly why Sam is so interested in her impure thoughts. She's embarrassed because what she knows Sam wants so badly for Brooke to be thinking about, she **has **been thinking about. And then she's sad, because she knows she's too afraid to confess to that.

"Just… thoughts." She finishes vaguely, waving her locked hands out towards Sam in what appears to be random gesticulation, but that Brooke suspects is actually the truth attempting to manifest itself. Suddenly, Sam is lunging forward and shoving Brooke in the shoulder with her hand, grinning.

"C'mon Brooke. You have to have thought about **someone**." Brooke just looks at Sam, shaking her head, and a dark eyebrow raises at the same instant a lip twitches in a smirk. "Someones?" The blonde laughs, vaulting forward and shoving Sam in the stomach with both her hands, so the other girl falls out of her kneeling position at Brooke's side and ends up very close to the end of the bed on her back. "Brooke McQueen!" Sam all but shrieks, smile wide as she laughs up at the ceiling. "Day dreaming about Sapphic getaways to the isle of Lesbos, surrounded by half naked female Greek natives, why I'm shocked!" She is still laughing when the pillow connects with her face and she gets a mouthful of material encased feathers.

"Shut up,** Spam**." And now they're both laughing. It's exuberant and bubby and it obliterates any unease still lingering between them from their multitude of misunderstandings. No official, to be found in the dictionary, words pass between them for a while. It's all shrieks and giggles and nonsensical vowel sounds as Brooke continues smacking Sam with the pillow. Vainly, the shorter girl, being somewhat at a disadvantage on her back and unable to get up, tries to snatch the pillow out of Brooke's grasp, but the blonde proves to be one step ahead, foiling her every attempt. And then between the time it takes to blink and breathe, Brooke has crawled onto Sam and is straddling her, still grinning, albeit slightly maniacally, and flapping the pillow against her face. Finally, the reporter sees an opening and the next time Brooke brings it down, she grabs the pillow and holds tightly to it, refusing to let go even as the blonde tugs.

"You gonna make me?" Hazel orbs lift from the pillow at the challenge and she finds Sam looking at her far more intensely than she had been just seconds ago. Brooke's laughter fades a little, and she wonders how Sam can be so shy and insecure and unwilling to show even a modicum of her feelings one minute, and then can play the part of the smouldering temptress to perfection the next. She wonders why she does it, if she thinks there's no hope for something more between them. Why indulge in touching the forbidden fruit if you aren't going to pluck it from the tree? Why tease yourself like that? But then again, Brooke herself does the same.

An unintelligible noise squeaks from Brooke's slightly parted lips as Sam's words and her grasp on the pillow loosens until it rests against Sam's chest. The brunette's hands drop from it and Brooke stares at Sam, thinking about how much she'd like to stop her and the various ways in which she could.

Sam suddenly feels a little light headed and is very glad she's lying down. Somehow, without her verbal consent which she doesn't think would outweigh her mental one anyway, her hands have moved to rest on Brooke's thighs, covered only partially by the pyjama shorts she's wearing. It's a decidedly more than friendly, more than sisterly act, and Sam has no idea what to do now. Other than hyperventilate. Now she has the contact, she loath to disengage, enjoying it as much as she is worried that Brooke will freak if she pulls away like she's been burned. So she leaves her hands there, in the hope that Brooke won't notice or really think anything of it if she does.

"_Sure, feel her up, that won't give you away. God McPherson, you are __**such**__ a hormonal wreck! Thank god she hasn't noticed, otherwise you'd be in a world of trouble."_

"_Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."_ Brooke's skin is on fire where the bottom of Sam's palms are touching her. _"Her hands are, they're-"_ Even in her thoughts she whimpers. _"They're on me. Oh god, please, please don't pass out because there's no amount of talking that'll explain that._ _You __**so**__ should not be allowed to feel like this. Oh, she's waiting for an answer. Okay, breathe. Breathe."_

Somehow, Brooke's brain manages not to sputter and die, and she regains her composure, determined not to let the position of Sam's hands effect her speech and thought process. At least, anymore than they already have. Invisible hands wrap around the part of herself that rejoices when Sam throws down the verbal gauntlet and holds on tight, anticipating the ride like it's something belonging in Disneyland.

"Damn straight I'm gonna make you." Before the sentence is half past Brooke's lips, Sam has had no fewer than six separate fantasies involving kissing the blonde, but as the seventh one begins to manifest, Brooke grins and lifts the pillow from Sam's chest, placing it against her face. Even though there's no real danger, Sam's heartbeat speeds to chest bruising heights, and she doesn't know if it's due to the lack of oxygen, survival instincts kicking on, or because Brooke has shifted to allow for better leverage, and now her legs are resting on either side of Sam's stomach. And her shirt has risen ever so slightly in the shuffle. And she can feel Brooke's bare thighs pressing against her hip and exposed skin of her sides. It's electric and Sam instantly feels the buzzing of intoxication begin to cloud her brain. She also feels the vines of helplessness tighten around her limbs, because the only thing she has to try and do is survive Brooke and how the blonde makes her feel. And she hasn't been doing a very good job. So, blind and a little frantic, Sam reaches up and runs her fingers rapidly along the sides of the blonde's torso. Ticklish there, it's like Brooke's automatic release button, and she lets go of the pillow, crossing her arms over her chest and clamping her hands against her sides. Sam retaliates, picking up the relinquished would-be murder weapon and hefts it to smack Brooke in the side of her own head, mussing her golden locks and making her look as though her eyeballs briefly tried to vacate her skull.

"God, Brooke, I knew it was only a matter of time before you tried to off me." Brushing the hair from her face, Brooke's face crumples into a frown at the tone of Sam's voice. The brunette sounds genuinely hurt and fear grips the taller girl.

"Sam, I didn't-" Sam cuts her off, lunging up and forward and shoving the pillow at Brooke face's, forcing the girl backwards until she slides off Sam and she hits the bed with a grunt. There's a struggle that lasts minutes, Brooke's sure, and then finally the pillow has been tossed aside and it's just them and their hands. They lock together, fingers interlacing as they grin and giggle as Brooke tries to force Sam off with just the strength in her arms and the brunette tries to push her back down. "Ugh!" Brooke grunts again, struggling with herself as much as she's struggling with the feisty dark-haired girl above her, because the entire length of other girl's body keeps pressing against hers and if keeps happening, Brooke is going to snap and lose the ability to push Sam away. "You're…" Huff, struggle, then a yelp from Sam as Brooke somehow manages to get a knee up between them and forces Sam to roll off of her. "So freaking heavy."

"Hey!" Sam protests, panting heavily and glancing at Brooke from the corner of her eyes. The blonde's chest is rising and falling just as rapidly as her own and Sam smiles. Because this is one of 'those' moments. Where she can forget the misery and the hopelessness, and just give in to the closeness that being friends gives her, even if that's all she can get. "Don't get pissy just because the shorter girl can overpower you." She smirks and Brooke tilts her head towards her so Sam can see the exaggerated eye roll directed at her.

"You have a very high opinion of yourself, you know that?" Brooke smirks, rising an eyebrow, and Sam laughs, her shoulders lifting against the mattress in a shrug. She rolls onto her side and props her head up with her hand, looking down at Brooke who has all but stopped breathing, though Sam doesn't notice.

"Do I know her?" All of Brooke's breath leaves her in a whoosh of exasperation.

"Sam!" Dark eyes twinkle with mirth and even as hazel gaze stare back, the blonde is aware that their faces are far too close together. "Jeez, when I answered you I though that would be it. I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition." Brooke almost jumps out of her skin when Sam throws a hand into the air and points towards the ceiling.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" Brooke stares at her, completely befuddled by the loud outburst.

"You are by far the quirkiest person I have **ever **met." Sam beams widely down at her.

"Thanks, Brooke!" She says with overly enthused sincerity. "I think you're insane too." There's a beat of silence in which Brooke rolls her eyes, again, and Sam pokes her tongue into her cheek thoughtfully. "Tell me." She dares her, looking far too enticing for her own good, and Brooke shakes her head.

"Wasn't the point of this to deduce whether or not I was telling the truth about whether or not I'd actually thought about it?" Sam nods. "And I told you the truth, so technically, shouldn't this conversation be over?" She stops, looking at Sam hopefully. Sam's expression softens a little and for a minute, Brooke thinks she's going to be let off the hook.

"Nice try." Brooke groans and moves to pull Sam's pillow out from under her head, but the brunette intercepts her, gripping the blonde's right wrist with her left hand. "What's the big deal, Brooke? Just tell me!" Refusing to back down, Brooke struggles to pull her arm free, only succeeding in pulling the other girl closer. Far, far too close. "Is it a teacher?" Sam's breath tickles her cheek as she hovers over Brooke and, heart hammering in her chest, she turns her head to give herself some needed distance, using an expression of disgust to cover her tracks.

"No! God, I've had alternative thoughts, I'm not deranged." Sam laughs at that.

"So tell me!" She pulls a face, her nose crinkling as though she just smelled something decidedly unpleasant. "Ew, as long as it's not Nicole. Because that brings seriously less than pleasant images to mind." That familiar heat is kindled in Brooke again by Sam's words, spreading with the realisation that Sam doesn't know she's slipped yet. And Brooke knows she should leave it alone, that she should just give Sam some random name to satisfy her and let the comment go.

But she knows herself better than that. Knows that when the opportunity is there, she's too weak to resist it. She discovered long ago that pushing the boundaries is dangerous, but it's addictive and it's fun. And Brooke can't help but tease Sam sometimes. Knowing how the other girl feels about her brings something out in her that she can't always control, and while she might be too afraid to confess, she isn't afraid to push Sam into a confession. And maybe if Brooke drives her crazy enough, Sam will break and tell her.

Slowly, she turns her head back until she can look at Sam, who hasn't even attempted to pull away or release Brooke's wrist, and raises an eyebrow.

"But should it be someone other than Nic, they'd be good visuals?" Instantly, Sam's cheeks all but erupt with colour and her gaze drops, heart pounding in her ears. Her brain tries frantically to escape the fog Brooke's question created and come up with a suitable response, but right now all she can focus on is breathing. "Tell me, Sammy…" Brooke begins again softly, pulling Sam's eyes back to her own again. She can feel the thin ice beneath her feet, is aware of the danger, but can't help edging further out, wanting to see how far she can go. Sam has stopped breathing. "Who do you want me to have been thinking about?"

Sam blinks, and in the eighth of a second it takes her, her eyes change. They've become a swirling mix of fear, hope and lust, and Brooke feels her stomach flip, because she thinks that this time she might have gone too far. She might have done it. She swears she can actually see the cracks appearing in Sam's façade, can feel her crumbling above her. Sam's grip on her wrist suddenly feels like a ring of fire circling it and Brooke can't look away from the brunette's lips. And then Sam wets them with her tongue and Brooke can practically **feel** gravity lean on Sam, ever so slightly.

"Knock, knock." The words are accompanied by actual, physical knocks, and Brooke feels a kind of sympathy whiplash as she watches Sam's head snap to face the door. She feels the gravity around her drop through the floor, taking her stomach and her hopes with it, and finds the strength to pull her eyes away from Sam as a surprised sounding "Oh." follows. Then Sam is retreating from her at lightening speed and sit's a good few feet away, allowing Brooke to sit and finally meet Jane's eyes. The older woman's brow is furrowed and she looks bother confused and a little concerned. Like she isn't sure what she just saw.

"Mom, for the last time, Harrison and I are **not** meeting up for sexual late night liaisons." Sam sounds frustrated and Brooke isn't about to trust herself with actually talking at this point. Horrific thoughts of accidentally confessing all the times she's met up with Sam in her mind late at night. Jane straightens at the tone in her daughter's voice and she plasters on an offended expression.

"I was just coming in to say goodnight." Sam stares at her mom, looking right through her.

"Which would be totally acceptable if I were still ten and needed tucking in." Jane grins, knows she's been caught. Brooke just sits there, still reeling. "Nice try though." Jane shrugs in good-natured defeat.

"Can't blame a mom for trying." Her eyes shift over to Brooke. "You guys… doing okay in here?" Sam hummed in the affirmative.

"Just talking." Jane glances pointedly at the pillow lying on the floor and Sam rolls her eyes. "There may or may not have been an altercation with the pillow."

"Just don't break anything, okay?" Sam smiles and makes a cross sign over her heart. "Night girls." And Jane leaves, completely unaware of the moment she herself had broken. Brooke remains still, face blank except for the small crease of a frown, and there's a pause of silence before Sam opens her mouth to speak.

"I'm really tired." Brooke interrupts suddenly, scooting off the bed and getting to her feet. Sam's eyebrows rise in surprise but then droop in acquiescence.

"Oh, okay." Sam fidgets and Brooke can't help but wonder what's going through the other girl's mind. "Thanks for the jello." The blonde thinks she manages a smile before she mumbles a goodnight and somehow turns herself around to leave.

Brooke returns to the sanctuary of her room, thoughts of what could have happened if Jane didn't have such impeccable timing running through her head. Along with thoughts of Harrison and how much it had scared her to think she'd lost Sam forever. She scrambles onto her bed, not bothering to get under the covers, and allows her eyes to close as her back hits the mattress.

Brooke likes to be in control of things. That simple fact is at the core of her eating disorder, it's present in her everyday life. It's part of the reason she keeps her feelings hidden; because she can. Because she fears that if she doesn't keep that control over them, things will spiral, and she doesn't know how she'll control the consequences. The problem is, Brooke can feel the threads of her control beginning to unravel and as much as she tries to stop it, she's finding it harder and harder to keep her hold on them.

But after thinking she'd lost her chance with Sam, the realisation that she would never ever be able to experience any of the things she daydreamed about so often had hit her like a tidal wave. She'd felt something shift dramatically, the things keeping her balanced on that fence of indecision sliding to the side that scared her. So, lying there with only her fear and dreams for company, Brooke takes a good hard look at both. And makes a decision.


End file.
